Oracles and Kings
by strangeseraph
Summary: Strange golden visions plague Gusto's night and ghostly beings haunt his days. And his only clues to his visions are a strange young Gummi Bear from the North and odd stirrings of memories from his past. (Title tentative. Gruffi/Gusto pairing. Blood, gore, violence, drug use, sex. User discretion is advised.)
1. Golden Dreams

~Huraah! A new Gummi story! After all this time I'm writing something again! This is another Gusto-Must-Suffer-Greatly-Plus-Slash fic. Gruffi/Gusto fluff and its more mature than other stuff I've written. Gorey bloody descriptions, talk of drug use and sex and whatnot abounds. Not for the little kiddies this story. Its for the adult kiddies. X)

~Also, I'm not too sure about the chapter seperations, since I just sort of spew things out in a stream. I may recut these chapters later. Dunno yet.

~Enjoy

Golden Dreams

Gusto Gummi could usually remember most of his dreams. They were usually always different, beautiful, and often inspired him. They were also always unique. Never could he remember having the same dream twice. And his dreams were always colorful, inhabited by every hue imaginable, usually the very hues his next day's art would take on.

The only color present in his most recent dreams was gold, and these dreams were always the same. It never changed; it started with a golden light that sparkled and gleamed and pierced through the darkness of a black dreamtime nightmare to scour his sleeping brain with harsh insistent light. It was a light that demanded his attention, and nothing else had priority over it. This light was joined in by the pounding sound of a hammer hitting iron, just as insistent, as a backdrop to this aching light. But try as he might to reach out and grasp the light, to reach it, to walk towards it, he could not, and the more he approached it, the farther it seemed to get. And all around him shadowy figures also reached for the golden light, and he could recognize no faces, only feeling the same aching need to discover and grab whatever it was that was glaring at him through the darkness of night.

Suddenly, something new...the feeling of falling! And Gusto woke sweating and tangled on the ground in sweat soaked sheets. The light that now glared into his waking eyes was the light of the sun peeking through the curtains of his room. The pillows were still in the hammock...as well as his left leg hooked over the rope attaching it to the support beam. The support rope was twisted around his ankle, the roughness rubbing his skin raw.

_I must have been thrashing in my sleep! Curse it!_

Gusto untidily tried to sit up, and winced at a pain in his head.

_Something is going to pay for this...or someone! I haven't decided yet!_

Unable to even get his foot unhooked from the hammock rope, Gusto resigned himself to staying on the ground for the moment. Rubbing his head and suddenly feeling a wetness, and pulling his hand back to look at the redness there, he realized he couldn't just sit here all day and bleed.

_Ha ha, I really hope somebody comes around and helps me, I'll feel really bad if I have to lay here on the ground all day and somebody finds me days later...having bled to death..._

Luck was with him, as he soon heard the sounds of whistling from beyond the window; Buddi Barbic. The whistle was uncanny; it was the same tune he played on his flute. Plus, he was the only Barbic that Gusto was willing to let anywhere near his studio, which was good because Buddi was the only Barbic willing to guard his pathetic ass. Gusto had relocated to a very remote and untouched part of Ursalia after an incident with some of his best paintings and what Barbics called 'target practice'. It had been very uncomfortable for Gusto to talk to any Barbic after that, and they had all teased him and his artistic skills. It was one of the few times that Gruffi Gummi had ever stood up for Gusto's right to paint and not have his creations relegated to the status of 'trash' as Ursa had arrogantly commented. "Nothing more than worthless childish splotches. Wasted canvas…."

It was the memory of this that made him pause and think deeply before calling out for help.

"Hey! HEY BUDDI! Help a Gum out here!?"

Buddi's whistling outside stopped, and Gusto waited patiently until the Barbic in question finally found his way up the rickety wooden stairs of the abandoned storehouse to the loft that Gusto had set up shop inside. The floorboard creaked as Buddi entered.

"Gusto?"

"Over here, behind the curtain…"

Gusto had a decorative curtain he had hung to separate his main livingroom from his sleeping area. There was little need to have the curtain, Gusto didn't exactly get company all the way out here that could come in and accidently see him while he undressed. Buddi came around the curtain and stopped in his tracks.

Then Buddi did something really annoying. He laughed!

"What did you do? Go over Funston Falls in your sleep?"

"Ha ha ha, very funny. Help me out, I think I hit my head on something sharp, my head is bleeding and I can't sit up…"

This caused Buddi to move immediately, carefully disentangling Gusto's leg from the rope before helping him sit up gingerly to examine his head.

"Not a large cut, but large enough," he quickly pulled a (hopefully clean) hanky from his pocket to press to Gusto's head. "And it looks like you twisted your ankle too. Must hurt like hell," Buddi got to his feet. "Stay here, I'll get a first aid kit from Grammi and be right back."

It was more than likely that Grammi would come back with him.

"Not in the mood to go anywhere," Gusto moaned, gingerly touching the bump on his head, then massaged his aching ankle. _These Golden dreams are going to KILL me!_

It wasn't Grammi or Buddi who arrived soon after the Barbic youth left his company, but Gruffi, who found him glowering on the floor and thusly helped him into a chair.

"I was going to ask you if you wanted to work on some more ceramics today, but Grammi will probably want you to take a rest…"

"Probably. I got some pots drying downstairs next to the kiln, but someone promised to fix the kiln and never got around to it. So they aren't fired yet…"

Gruffi chuckled, with an apologetic look.

"Sorry Gus, I guess my pile of chores has gotten a bit large this week and I tend to prioritize things in order of necessity. I'll get to it today…"

Gusto smiled warmly and forgot all about the kiln. He liked it when Gruffi called him Gus. He liked it when the normally stern bear got all soft and apologetic, revealing the warm caring Gummi beneath. He liked the way his eyebrows creased as he examined the tangle of blankets and the twisted hammock.

"Have another bad dream?"

Gusto winced and nodded sheepishly, knowing what was coming.

"Same one?" Gruffi said, looking suddenly stern, and became sterner when Gusto nodded again. "You told us those dreams had done with, and that you were fine!"

Gusto sighed.

"The dreams never stopped. But I didn't want anyone to worry…"

"You've been having the same dream over and over," Gruffi said, a little angrily. "Thats an omen, a vision, and Zummi will want to know!"

Gusto looked away feeling foolish and a little like a cub caught with his hand in the cookie jar. In truth, he'd been annoyed by Zummi bothering him constantly about the dreams and trying to psychoanalyse the possible meanings of them.

Or rather, dream, it was one dream, the same one, over and over...and over...and...over…

A soft warm hand on his shoulder suddenly brought him back to reality and he looked up at Gruffi with a pained look, and was relieved to be met with a sympathetic frown instead of anger.

"Its terrible Gruff. I can't sleep, and when I do its not for very long before the dream comes. I can barely paint anymore. Your ceramics project is the only thing I can concentrate on, because it involves no paint or colors or thinking. I could make clay pots in my sleep. In fact I wish I had been doing that instead…"

Gruffi's eyes were soft and pained now and he squeezed the shoulder his hand was grasping.

"I understand. And I understand why you didn't tell us. Sometimes it feels better to try and pretend things are normal than have to face reality. I've done that more than once. But Gus, lets face it...Zummi is right; you are an Oracle. There's no changing that now. Better to have Zummi help you figure it out, then wait for it to just go away. Because it won't."

Gusto winced. Gruffi was right. It wasn't just the dreams. Sometimes...sometimes he could tell when something good or bad was going to happen, though he couldn't picture quite what. Sometimes he could sense when somebody was looking for him. Sometimes he could feel the weather changing and knew exactly what the weather was going to do. This week's forecast...heat. And drought. As usual.

"I might be able to accept my new role, if it wasn't for Zummi's constant questions. The dream hasn't changed. Its the exact same thing, every night, over and over, same darkness, same shady figures, same golden light and same pounding hammer on metal. I am without explanation…"

"I dunno," Gruffi said, not taking his hand off the shoulder. "Maybe you should move in with us...until you can sleep properly…"

"Maybe you could help me bring a proper bed up here like you promised," Gusto said wryly, and Gruffi huffed.

"Maybe...then I could sleep over."

That made Gusto blush profusely. Gruffi smirked and bent down to kiss him impishly on the cheek. He would have kissed him again, if Gusto hadn't heard, or rather sensed, that somebody was coming.

"Someone's here," Gusto said quickly, pushing the kissy bear away before, annoyingly enough, Budddi did arrive with Grammi in tow, and her first aid kit.

"Oh good, Gruffi, you're here. How's his head?"

"Bleeding's stopped…" Gruffi said, looking just as annoyed as Gusto at Grammi's arrival, but probably for different reasons.

Gusto was stunned. He hadn't even noticed Gruffi checking the cut. Grammi set to examining the cut, decided it didn't need stitches, put some ice on it, then went about examining his foot.

"Just twisted, not broken," she said, and he felt the cold of another ice pack and a wrapped bandage to keep it in place. "Stay inside today, keep your foot up...and rest!"

"Yes ma'am," Gusto said, feeling as if he wanted to do anything but rest, lest he fall asleep and the vision intrude on his dreams again. "Can do."

Gruffi made a sound like he was going to say something when a soft sound of a horn in the distance caused them all to look at the window.

"Ursa's calling, I'm off," Buddi said immediately. "Bet its the troggles again."

"Same ones that set up camp outside the city?" Grammi sighed.

"What other troggles are there?" Buddi laughed, and was gone with a quick jaunt. Gusto suddenly felt very guilty for living so far away from the main group.

"I'm going to go get a bed for you," Gruffi said roughly. "Then I'm gonna fix your kiln…"

"Thanks Gruffi," Gusto sighed. He really did want to live away from the noise of the Barbics. "I appreciate it, I really do."

"Meanwhile, you come with me," Grammi said sternly. "You can rest in Gruffi's bed today…"

Gusto groaned, and wincingly got to his feet. Fortunately Gruffi was quick to catch on to his unspoken cues and grabbed a loose stick from Gusto's odds and ends pile, sized it up as the right size, and wrapped the raw end in one of the rags Gusto kept around for random purposes. Gusto was soon limping along with the rough cane beside Grammi, and grateful to have her, since he could barely see where he was going, his eyes were so droopy.

_I'm going to sleep as soon as I hit the pillows, I know it. And I won't sleep long. I'll have the vision, and I'm not sleeping when I have the vision, not getting rest. Its like I'm wide awake, and staring into a golden abyss!_

* * *

><p>Ursa Barbic could not believe the audacity of these troggle creatures!<p>

"Camped out like a bunch of poachers, right on the city bridge…"

Like overgrown dogs the troggles, some dressed, most of them naked and wild, were ganged up together on the bridge, laughing in their barking hissing way and throwing things at the city gate.

Ursa did not want to know what exactly that unidentifiable sticky substance was that they used in their stink bombs. She did not want to know…

A tug on her tunic and she turned. Reggi Barbic, "Hawk" as they called the keen eyed Gum, was deaf and unable to speak, and thus instead of speaking he pointed at a very very large and nearly black troggle with a white scar and a thing on his head that could only be called a crown. It was little more than a bunch of animal bones stuck together on his head, but since he was double the size of the other troggles he clearly had earned his pride of place. The 'king' was doing nothing but sit there while his troops threw things at them.

"Not Lady Bane this time, that one seems to be in charge," she said to Gritty next to her, who had already spotted where Hawk was pointing.

"Unless she's decided to get herself a general to keep them in check…"

"Seems like it. But the king...er...general...isn't wearing clothes…"

It seemed more likely that Lady Bane's troggles had simply joined in the fun their wilder cousins were engaged in. Fun...as in throwing troggle bombs at the doors and teasing them, sticking their tails at them and making rude gestures.

"Well?" Gritty said. "Should we try and route em?"

"Yeah, but leave the gates closed, we can reach them from here…"

Hawk and the other archer Barbics were delighted to have live targets to practice on. They didn't use actual arrows, no need to waste them on something so stinky and generally harmless. Instead they armed their 'mudslingers' with stones and bits of broken bricks and whatever hard heavy ammo they could get.

The troggles scattered and ran down the tunnel away from the attack in a cursing and swearing band.

"They seem to be out of reach now," Gritty decided. "Lets see what sort of damage they've done to the gates."

Ursa agreed, mentally cursing at the retreating troggles, while an ominous feeling swept over her.

_The troggles have a king now. Soon Cala will be crowned and she'll marry Cavin. And there's a new Barbarian king going around burning villages in the north-east. And if the rumors Cavin told us are true...another King. A more sinister one in the far Nothern Mountains…_

Ursa hoped, very much, that they never had to find out for themselves if the rumors were true. Troggles would seem like a tame little newborn puppy dogs compared to an Orc King.

Then again, so would almost anything else.

_"Never fight with an orc_," her father had once told her. "_He will live. You will die."_

She hoped she never had to find out.

* * *

><p>One thing Gruffi always prided himself on was his ability to keep a promise. The very sudden reminder of his priorities by Gusto earlier, and his promise to get something done by day's end meant that he would get it done. His first task after quickly grabbing Tummi from the kitchen table, where he was boringly eating his oatmeal breakfast, was to go about finding a good bed with short legs for Gusto to use. If Gusto was going to fall out of bed he'd at least not have far to fall. They carried it to the quick car where they lashed it on and then went to the other end of the city where Gusto had decided to set up shop.<p>

Getting it up the rickety wooden steps to the second floor was trying to Gruffi's temper and he swore he would convince Gusto to move before summer's end or fix his stairs at least. The other problem of the kiln was of higher priority than it had been a week ago when Gusto had first bothered him about it, so the stairs would wait. The ground around Ursalia was so dry and dead that they couldn't get anything to grow except in pots. Then only small things like herbs and some tough tubers would grow. The trees planted around the city were drying out and withering. The water level in the reservoir was dangerously low and they were living off the water in the city water tank. It would be enough water for a year, but if it didn't rain soon they would starve before they ever went thirsty. Even the animals were scarce, the hunting Barbics coming back with less, and rats that had devastated their wheat stores would have been a welcome meal if not for the certain fact that many rats carried plague wherever they went. They'd had to burn the rest of the grain for fear of being sickened by it.

_Death by hunger or death by plague...What a choice!_

Gruffi grumbled and examined the outer shell of Gusto's kiln while Tummi stood behind him, looking bored, but staying silent nonetheless. Wise. Whenever Gruffi was in one of these moods it was a bad idea to talk to him.

"Hm, this doesn't look like there's anything wrong with it, but he says its not getting hot enough…"

The kiln was, in fact, the primary reason Gusto had chosen this building for his home. It was, truth be told, the only working kiln in the city. This storehouse had once been a workshop of some sort and the kiln was the primary heat source. It was a self contained metal and brick monument to Great Gummi design and efficiency. Perhaps Gusto was smarter than they all. The Glens had chosen the coziest rooms in the palace with hallways that took forever to traverse and a heating system that needed more firewood than they could afford to burn that barely heated the place. The Barbics joined them once the winter got cold enough to teach them that sleeping in the soldier's barracks with its poor ventilation and broken roof was not the best thing in the world. But Gusto had chosen this skinny storehouse; it could get hot really quickly with little wood burned and was cool all summer long thanks to high mountain winds through the well ventilated rafters. Maybe the plush comfortable palace was more trouble than it was worth.

Gruffi sighed and decided to double check that the fireplace upstairs was working first, because it was going to get really cold this winter, he was sure, and Gusto tended to neglect his flue. Gusto stored his few kitchen related possessions next to the fireplace haphazardly, and much to Gruffi's annoyance he had to move everything first before he could get to the fireplace. Besides the usual mealtime things like plates and cups, some with paintbrushes or paint in them, there was a metal pot for cooking some soup, a tea kettle and some metal cooking utensils. There was a small box which Gruffi couldn't help but peek into; inside there were some loosely bagged tea leaves and dried vegetables for making soup. Some salted fish, a bit of ramma cheese and some of that bread, not the grain bread they'd had to stop making, but something made from oatmeal which Gusto called _bannock_. He'd shared the recipe with Grammi, who was surprised that Gusto actually could cook. He'd also taught them a recipe for something called _haggis_. The Barbics had been more grateful than the Glens for that one.

_Gusto is very self reliant,_ Gruffi thought fondly. _Perfect in every way really…_

Although their flirting hadn't gone beyond much more than banter and stolen kisses on the cheek, Gruffi was considering going further. Gusto wasn't having any of it.

_Wonder what's got him so spooked? The others wouldn't care. I don't know about Cala and Cavin but they wouldn't have to be told…No I don't think its a fear of people knowing..._

There was no use woolgathering when Gusto was counting on him to fix the kiln. Maybe that would seal the deal. Maybe Gusto would want him around more if he could see that Gruffi cared about his needs.

_I'll have Grammi keep this box of his filled with all the herbs and soup things he could want. And some of that honey. A little sweetness for his tea._

Gruffi quickly checked the flue, was surprised to find it nice and clear, and then went back down to the kiln, where Tummi was close to falling asleep.

"The problem is probably a broken seal somewhere, letting the hot air escape. If the temperature isn't right the clay will bake unevenly. Which is why the pots Gusto makes keep cracking during the firing. I know he's drying them properly. He's got too much experience with pottery and ceramics to do sloppy work…"

_Unless...the visions. He could have been distracted by them during his sculpting the clay._

Gruffi was going to give Gusto the benefit of the doubt though, and started the thorough and painstaking process of checking the kiln inside and out, examining all the bricks, the seals on the door, the hinges, and finally having Tummi bring in some wood so he could test the darn thing, tapping all the valves and meters to make sure they were showing the right temperatures as they should. His tools were quick to hand at tightening bolts that may be loose, and tapping the brickwork to test for weaknesses. It had been five hundred years, maybe things were just breaking down the way they would naturally. He'd have Gusto try another kiln...if they could find one. For now, he could find nothing wrong. Nothing.

_Except for a sleepy, unhappy artist having his clay break during firing. And he wouldn't mess up all his pots even if he was sleepy. Would he?_

"Well Tummi, we'll let the kiln cool down, and then I'll have to break the news to Gusto; there's nothing wrong with this kiln. Not a darned thing that I can see, anyways..."

"Gusto is not going to be happy about that."

* * *

><p>Gusto was not happy. His ankle hurt, his head hurt, and Zummi was sitting next to him reading him the collection of notes and books he had gathered on the subject of the oracle branch of Gummi magic. Zummi called it a 'gift'.<p>

"Oracle visions are often shared between oracles, which explains the other people in your dreams. They must be other oracles! How exciting!"

So he had found something useful about it at least. He really wasn't alone when he dreamed. Gusto wasn't sure if that was a comfort or creepy in and of itself. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of sharing anything that intimate with strangers. But Zummi's excitement was so danged grating on his already tight nerves that he was trying very hard not to snap at him to stop with the information. He really was trying, but these were things he needed to know.

"A pounding hammer is often a sign for…Well I'm not sure if its strength or sexual prowess..."

Finally he snapped. The last thing he wanted to talk to Zummi about was his sexual prowess!

"Zummi! Please!" he grated out through gritted teeth. "Grammi wants me to rest!"

Zummi looked up from his notes perplexed and jumped.

"Oh of gource Custo," he stammered. "Er, I mean, of course, Gusto, I'll be lack bater, I mean, back later then…"

_How about never?_ Gusto thought sourly as he pulled the blankets up around his chest.

At least Gruffi's bedroom was cool and comfortable. The wood paneling was warm golden oak and the bed was spacious. Enough room for two…

_No! No, lets not have that thought. No. No romance for me. Thats the trap. You don't want to fall into that trap! First you get into his bed, next, you end up ironing his underpants and making his dinner for the rest of your life!_

Commitment. A four letter word to his way of thinking, it rang loosely through his head. And if he was really honest with himself it wasn't commitment he was the most afraid of.

_Se...se...se...oh I can't even THINK it, let alone say it. Sex sex sex! There!_

But his worries and fears weren't put to ease. He was a babe in a basket compared to Gruffi, one hundred percent virgin. And Gruffi was a widower with two children he had fathered himself. With a woman.

Gusto had overheard Grammi awkwardly giving Sunni the 'talk' one day, and curious about it himself he'd stayed to listen in. So Gusto had no trouble imagining what sex with another male might just entail. Just the thought of it made him quiver in both tense unreleased desire, and queasy discomfort.

_You wimp! You're afraid of the pain. And here you are with a pounding headache and a twisted ankle! Wimp! You are everything Ursa has ever called you! Pansy! Scaredy cat! Coward!_

Speaking of Ursa, another round of horn blowing had signaled the Barbic's return from successfully routing the troggles. Gusto could almost see them now, going through drills in case the troggles decided to invade the city borders again. The fact that nobody had to tell him these facts, that he already knew them, was enough.

_Oracle,_ Gusto thought sourly. _What more bitter word has ever been spoken? Er...thunk. Oh heck. I can't sleep, and I need food! Its is almost lunch time, and I didn't get breakfast dangit!_

He risked the possibility of Zummi seeing him awake again (he hadn't slept anyways) and grabbed the fabric wrapped stick Gruffi had given him for a cane and hobbled his way down to the kitchen. As soon as he entered (Phew! Zummi wasn't there!) Grammi grabbed him to look at his head again. The small bump was not aching so much anymore, and at least the swelling had gone down.

"All right Gusto dear, have some lunch. Your head is fine. Gruffi brought your food box back here to the kitchen so you could refill it for the month. Goodness, I hadn't known you were feeding yourself I just thought you were skipping meals. But where are you finding all these herbs? I am barely able to scrounge a few here and there around the cracks in the cliffs."

"I'm very good at finding things...apparently," he shrugged. "You can have that stuff, Grammi. I don't think I'll be able to cook for myself. I don't trust myself to light a fire…"

"Or a kiln?" Gruffi stepped foot into the kitchen sheepishly. "Nothing wrong with the kiln Gusto, I'm afraid its all you. But I'll keep checking it each day. Some cracks take awhile to get wide enough to be seen with the eyes..."

Gusto moaned and looked up to the sky. He didn't notice Grammi putting the honey onto his bread, but he knew she had even with his eyes closed. Honey had more than just sweetness going for it, it was good for what ails you, and she kept some around not just for a treat, but for medical purposes. There was probably honey in the cream she was now smoothing over the cut on his head.

"Well, thats the bad news. The good news is that unfired clay pots should be okay for growing things in too. They just don't last very long."

Gusto nodded, highly annoyed with himself for the mistakes he must have made while sculpting the clay. His stomach reminded him of the food on his plate so he distracted himself with eating for awhile. The honey was very good.

They were soon joined by the lovely Sunni, her long hair braided neatly behind her head, her frilly apron freshly starched. It wasn't one he had seen her in before, and it stuck out to him for some unknown reason...

"I'm done hanging the laundry and I'm ready to do the dusting..."

"No worry dear, I sent Cubbi to do the dusting. Thornberry begged off his training to take a nap."

"Good, Cubbi doesn't do nearly as much around here as he should," she decided firmly, and nobody was inclined to disagree. "When he isn't following around Thornberry begging him to spar, he's going off with the Barbics to fight. Thats not work for Cubbi, thats fun."

"But useful fun," Gusto said, startling them all. "He's old enough to help protect the city, don't you think so Gruffi?"

But Gruffi wasn't paying attention to any of this, he was looking at Sunni in an odd odd way.

"Is that a new apron Sun Sun?" he said, using Gusto's pet name for her.

"No, its one of Grammi's, one she doesn't use…"

"Oh dear…" Grammi breathed quietly next to Gusto and Gruffi went over to hug Sunni and tell her not to worry about her brother.

_Ah...I see. It was her mother's apron…_

Gruffi vacated the kitchen quickly and Sunni looked at Grammi extremely confused.

"Come here girly," Grammi said. "Some things I should probably tell you. My, you do look like her don't you?"

It was time for Gusto to vacate too. He was about to when Grammi pushed him back down in his chair.

"Finish your lunch. Besides, you should hear this too love…"

Love. Gusto was annoyed. Now she was treating him like member of the family. Oh great, how much did she know?

"You see Sunni, that apron was your mother's, and well, you do look like her wearing it. Well, anyways, Gruffi doesn't know, but I kept a lot of your mother's things for you so that you could have them for when you were married one day. I think maybe its time to put them in your hope chest, if you're starting to look like her its probably time for you to court," she looked over at Gusto pointedly.

Did she think what he thought she did? No, no Sunni had done with her crush on Gusto long ago and had moved onto a Barbic...A Barbic that wasn't the lovesick Buddi Barbic, but his deaf and mute cousin, Hawk. A love triangle disaster waiting to happen. Ah, now he got it. Grammi wanted his confirmation that she had some suitors lined up, since he was the ear into which Sunni tended to pour all her innermost thoughts. He smiled in response.

"Well, anyways, I should have told Gruffi I still had them," Grammi continued with a soft breath, relieved at the unspoken exchange. "He might want to keep some more personal things...but you don't worry about it, the apron is yours now. What's he going to do with it?"

_Make me wear it,_ Gusto thought ruefully, then bit his tongue before he could speak. This was supposed to be a very gentle conversation, not an airing out of his own silly fears.

Fortunately he was saved anymore of this conversation by Ursa blasting her way into the room at full vocal power.

"HOW DARE THOSE DISGUSTING CREATURES BEFOUL OUR FAIR CITY GATES WITH THEIR FILTH AND LEAVINGS! I HAVE HALF A MIND TO SLAY THE BLOODY LOT OF THEM AND HANG THEIR HEADS UP AS A WARNING TO OTHERS!"

Gusto beat a hasty getaway from the noise while Grammi and Sunni were distracted, nearly running into Gritty on the way in. He gave a wide berth to the rest of the Barbics looking for lunch and high tailed it back to Gruffi's room.

Gruffi was waiting for him there. Oops.

"Oh, I should probably...go back to my place...you did get me a new bed right?"

Gruffi was sitting on the end of his bed, with a box open at his feet and some oddball paper cards in his hands.

"Yeah. Come here a second Gus, I want to show you something. Zummi's not as good an artist as you are, but I thought you'd might like to see his interpretation of all of us, me, Mandi, the kids...from way back then…"

_Ah, pictures of his wife and children. Yes, this is a good mindset to keep him in. No impure thoughts here._

Gusto tentatively sat down next to him and looked at the cards. Hm, these were pictures by Zummi.

_Not bad...a bit too mechanical for my taste. No life in the faces. All precise lines and curves. I think I'll tease him about it the next time I see him. Something at least to break up the litany of facts he keeps throwing at me about his research..._

"Sunni does look like her mum…" Gruffi said, sounding sort of resolute and sad. "Do you think...do you think Sunni and Cubbi would like to see these?"

"I'm sure they would," Gusto said, smiling, and squeezing Gruffi's shoulder, in echo of the way the other bear had this morning. "They were her children, and I think they have a right to see her…"

"The problem is that they can't ever see her. Sunni was so small, and Cubbi was a baby when…" his voice broke a bit, and he covered his face with his arm. "Scuze me…"

"Nothing to excuse...I understand. Its still hard for you."

"Yeah, well, no, just seeing her that way, in my Sunni...was a bit hard…"

Gruffi couldn't look at him and Gusto frowned for a moment.

"You know, I think there's a way I can make them see her," Gusto was starting to feel inspired, and smiled warmly. "Yes, I think there is a way…But you'll need to help me with certain details..."

Gruffi seemed to ken onto what he was saying and suddenly hugged Gusto so tightly he had trouble breathing.

"Hey hey, Gruff, its alright, hey, are you crying?"

He was, and he couldn't get a word out between sobs. Gusto sighed.

_I just can't win. Either he's angry all the time, or sad all the time. Or randy. What kind of man am I getting involved with?_

* * *

><p>The golden red light of the sun was dying in the distance, and Gusto found himself still in Gruffi's room, staring at the ceiling. Gruffi had vacated the room with the pictures to go show the children, and to share with them Gusto's plan to do a true portrait of Mandi Gummi for the family gallery. Which was just Gusto's collection of traditional portraits of all of the Glens and Barbics. Getting Ursa to dress in her best and sit down for an hour so he could paint her had been the most agonizing thing he had ever done, but the final result was that the Barbic leader was presented as a most beautiful, but stern, woman in green and red velvet with a backdrop of the city she protected. Even she thought it had been worth it.<p>

Even though Mandi wasn't alive, and he had never met her, Gusto felt she deserved a place in their family narrative. When future Gummi bears came to unearth the treasures of this city, the story and history of the people living there may not survive in parchment, but it would in portrait.

After Gruffi had vacated the room, Zummi had returned and since Gusto was supposed to have been in the bedroom all day he'd had no choice but to listen to Zummi some more. No excuses now.

"So I was thinking, as you do have this gift, that it might be useful if you practiced using it every day…"

_Practiced using it? What does Zummi think I do all day? The visions come to me whether I want them to or not!_

But instead of saying that, he nodded.

"How do I go about practicing this stuff anyways?"

"Oh, I'm glad you asked! I found a section in the Great Book of Gummi all about it!"

Gusto thus spent the rest of the day listening to Zummi prattle, breaking into his trains of thought only briefly to tease him about his drawings. Which lead to Zummi agreeing nervously to show him some more he had done, mostly in his private journal, and things like herbs and ingredients that Grammi had needed pictures of for her medical kit. Gusto was ecstatic at the idea of helping him update the images for accuracy! And somehow Zummi managed to exact a promise from him to come to the library for more research before the wizard was eventually shooed out by Grammi for supper. Gusto was left alone with a tray of food to watch the sinking sun. He couldn't eat though, his thoughts were starting to take a dark turn.

_Hours of researching with Zummi, clay pots to make, canvas picture of a dead woman who I am in the process of replacing as Gruffi's lover...no not replacing. I am so not going to be his wife! The only thing that could make this day worse would be…_

A morose Gruffi came back into the bedroom, as if on cue, and Gusto felt himself stiffen, ready for a row. He did not want to try making their relationship more intimate! Not now!

But Gruffi just pulled off his clothes in the darkness, too dark for Gusto to see anything, and then pulled on his nightgown without having to look for it, as if by rote, before he slumped down next to Gusto on top of the coverlet, almost rolling over on top of him!

"S'rry Gus, forgot you were here," he mumbled. "D'ya mind sharin'? Too tired to move…"

So Gruffi had been really busy at something after their conversation. Maybe cleaning up the city gates? Gusto couldn't ask about it anyways, as the bear in question was already snoring.

_Well. This is awkward._

Gusto eventually relaxed down enough that he could sleep, but sleep was brief, for soon the Golden Dream returned with its mind pounding confusion and when he woke, startled into bright morning dawn, the bed next to him was empty.

And still he had that feeling, the dreadful exhausted and achy feeling deep in his bones. As if he hadn't slept at all!

It was going to be another, long draining day, and this time, he had no excuse. No broken kiln, and two projects now he had to complete; the clay pots and the canvas of Mandi for the gallery.

_Somebody wake me up from this nightmare! A nightmare would be preferable actually, as long as I could get some sleep!_

First things first. He was going back to his own home, Grammi and Zummi bedamned. He needed his canvases and his pots and his pottery wheel and all that distraction and no more lusty thoughts about the very warm and wonderful man who had slept, only slept, next to him that night.

_Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!_


	2. A Tricky Cup Of Tea

A Tricky Cup Of Tea

Ursa groaned. Her bones ached. They had scrubbed for hours trying to get the gate cleaned. Whatever troggles used in their stinky and sticky bombs was a potent substance all right. At least the feces and urine had cleaned up. But those bombs…

The strategic part of her wanted to know for defensive purposes. The scientific part of her was thinking of various things the Barbics and Gruffi had tried to use to clean the stuff up and comparing them to all the herbs and things the Barbics knew that might work.

And the vindictive part of her wanted to throw it right back at the pesky critters and see how well they stuck together.

She was thus still in bed, thinking about this mess when she heard the creak of feet nearby. The room she resided in was the first room in a long row of the palace where all the Barbics slept. She had to contain herself from getting up too quickly, but she was itching to see who was first out of bed today. She was always first awake, but the other Barbics did their very best to catch her by surprise.

It was with a very startled jump that Hawk turned to salute when she had suddenly opened the door and shouted, "TEN HUT!"

Of course he couldn't hear her, but he had felt the door slam open and seen the look in her eye the moment he had turned, and knew...he just knew! She chuckled and set him at ease and asked him, with careful hand gestures, to ask Sunni to set aside some food for her to keep warm, she was going to go for a run first to work out some kinks in her bones.

Hawk saluted her excitedly and sped off.

When they had first moved into the city Sunni Gummi was the only Glen Gummi who had bothered to learn the symbols and signs Hawk used to communicate. To go one step farther, Sunni had found a complete language of symbols the Great Gummis had devised and written out in the Great Book of Gummi and had taken time out of her busy schedule to try and teach him. Over the years the Barbics and Glens had learned enough of the signs that they could speak with him, but Sunni and Hawk both knew them all. They were thick as bees now, and she was his closest friend.

_Or maybe more. Gosh, poor Buddi. Does he know?_

She was pretty sure Buddi was lovesick over Sunni. Then again, so were half the other Barbics, not many ladies for them to choose from after all. As if guessing her thoughts, Gritty came out of their shared room and leaned on the lintel.

"You know, I never get tired of watching you do that to them…"

"Oh yeah?" she said, a wicked gleam in her eyes. "You want to help me do my laps this morning? Or maybe do them for me?"

"Sure, I'll run with you, but I won't miss breakfast for anything in the world…"

"What? Why is that?" Ursa said as she got dressed, guessing she was about to rue her instructions to Hawk.

"Gusto gave Grammi his stash of teas. And there was, so I hear from Grubbi, a bit of that lovely mixture he taught us to make. I wonder if this morning will be the morning she accidentally puts it in the pot..."

Ursa gave a gasp and almost laughed. She wondered if Grammi knew that Gusto was fond of more...extracurricular forms of herbs. This would certainly be a sight to see!

* * *

><p>Gusto was exhausted. He was lucky this morning. The Barbic cook Grubbi had slipped him the two bags of his special mix from his food box that he had forgotten about when he'd given it to Grammi, thankfully before Grammi could use them for the morning's tea. Although, he was quite certain he'd had three...did Grubbi keep one for himself?<p>

But the mixture was not meant for everyone. He had been taught to make it by the Druid of some human village, the same village where he'd learned how to cook bannock. At least it wasn't the liquefied fish goop his Mumsy had always fed him in his youth. He could handle haggis over that any day of the week.

But the colorful visions he got when drinking the mixture had been harmless. Great for his painting and to help inspire him. He didn't dare drink any druid tea while he was still having the golden dreams.

_Maybe I should give the last two teabags to the Barbics. They do seem to like the stuff. It is a bit addictive…_

His canvas was primed and ready for paint, but he had some more sketching to do today and he needed a rest before he even though about painting Sunni as her mother might have looked. The little cards with Mandi's pictures were safely in Sunni's care for now, he wasn't ready for them yet and he was sure Gruffi wanted her to keep them anyways.

So that left the kiln. He managed to get the fires started in the kiln, and put a few test pieces in there to see if this batch would turn out better than the previous. Maybe Gruffi had solved whatever the problem was without realizing it. Or maybe it was a fluke. But he wasn't sure the clay pots were dried thoroughly enough to put them all in. He didn't want to risk a whole batch, thus the ones that had been waiting the longest would be sacrificed in this test. His own artsy clay pots, rather than the planting pots. Plus, he was running out of clay. It wasn't just pots they needed for herbs and small plants, but also cups, plates and all that. The Barbics went through a lot of things too, clumsy eaters that they were. He'd have to get over his dislike of their dislike of his art and have a serious resources conversation. In which he would suggest they bring some clay back from the river when they went fishing next in order to replace the plates they had ruined. Yes, that would be nice.

_That, or melt down some old swords and armor to make metal ones. THAT would get their attention immediately!_

In the meantime, he also had Zummi to contend with. He did NOT want to visit Zummi, but he had promised.

He looked around. And spotted, to his own astonishment, his own reflection in his bit of a broken mirror in the corner. He approached the scratched and faded thing, which he hadn't wanted to replace because he hadn't wanted to admit to anyone he had broken it. Seven years bad luck, they would tease him! He believed it now! But looking in the cracked glass at his own reflection was a stranger.

A tired, exhausted and angry stranger. A stranger with an aching ankle and two satchels of a nice herbal brew that might just help him relax…

No, no herbs. He was going to fulfill his promise to Zummi this afternoon and those teas were potent enough to send him sky high for days. He'd be useless! But first, before he saw Zummi, before he did anything else, he was going to nap. He needed just a little rest...just a little...just a little…

* * *

><p>Hawk was feeling morose. He was staring out over the wall of the city at the quickly gathering bands of troggles with a feeling as if he had just stepped on a cactus, and was about to step on a second one.<p>

Breakfast was over. Ursa was jogging around the perimeter, Gritty with her. And the other Barbics were still near the gate. He wondered where Buddi was.

He'd never been good at horn blowing. He couldn't get enough breath for it. He'd never been able to hear, not in his whole life, but his breath and voice he had lost in the terrible fires that had consumed Barbic woods.

Not that he needed his voice much. He'd always been a very quiet one, even when he had been able to voice his opinion. Now it seemed he was cursed. The one time he needed his voice was the one he didn't have it.

But he would have to try his horn. He blew as hard as he could on the horn, unable to hear the result, and he cursed his lungs. No response, the Barbics on the other walls hadn't move. He could see as far as the other side of the damned city from here, and he knew he had the best aim of any archer, with the stamina and strength to fling arrows as fast as the others. But in pure lung power he would never match anyone ever again.

But he would have to try again, the troggles had found that narrow ledge in the gorge that circled the side of the city away from the aqueducts and quick tunnels. It was narrow enough to jump but there were no entrances here and two large gaps in the ledge preventing egress to other parts of the wall. Wondering what they were planning to do, Hawk tried again with his horn. This time he was more successful, and he could see the other Barbics on the wall start to come this way. He blew again, his lungs aching against the imaginary feeling of smoke filling his chest. Memories of pulling Buddi Barbic away from his dead father's body and dragging him away from the flames…

The strategy of the troggles wouldn't be learned by him until later, when the smell of smoke would rise in the city and memories of his Uncle's dead glassy eyes would once again haunt his waking thoughts...

* * *

><p>Gusto was having that dream again. Of course he was. The Golden Dream. He heard the pounding of a hard hammer on iron. Was it actually a hammer? Zummi had cautioned him to make sure! There was no way to truly tell, he couldn't actually see a hammer, or metal, but he could hear these things either way. And the Golden light was glowing at him now. But now he knew the other shapes were Oracles like him, and this time, he tried to address them.<p>

**_Who are you?_**

He couldn't shout in his dream, though he tried. He had to try again, this time, quietly...

_Who are you?_

Better. The shady shapes were coming into focus. Change! They were looking at him. And as he approached he saw they were Gummi Bears, like him!

_We Are As You Are, they all sang to him. The Oracles of New Gumbrea! Who else would we be?_

I am not as you are. I am not an Oracle of New Gumbrea!

Excitement. From him. From them.

Who are you?

_...of Ursalia_

Names and self identification were apparently forbidden here.

_Repeat?_

_An Oracle. Of Ursalia!_

_Ursalia!_

The light no longer hurt him. It seemed to be something they were all trying to reach. He was not alone. They wanted to know more about him. About Ursalia. And how much he knew about the light.

But something was happening now. Something was shaking him. He could feel pain, a horrible pain, searing, and the Oracles of New Gumbrea were reaching for him in fright as he was pulled suddenly out of the vision into waking burning daylight.

He was looking into a grizzled and snarling dark face, a face crowned in bones. Claws were digging into his arms and his belly. He was very much being pinned by this troggle.

Before he knew it, he had reacted instinctively, shrieking like a cat on fire and kicking the most sensitive part of the troggle's anatomy with his feet. The animal howled and cursed and Gusto rolled sideways off the bed and under it, clutching his bleeding stomach. The troggle wasn't fooled, and it wasn't alone. Two troggles pulled the bed off of him while the one with the bone crown dragged him out from under it by his twisted ankle.

"Aaarrgh! Get off me you furry f..."

He couldn't finish the sentence as he was thrown without preamble across the room, hitting the far brick wall.

Stars burst in front of his eyes and he scrambled sideways as they came towards him in a predatory and slow movement. He reached in a panic for the bathroom door and closed it frantically just as they lunged. He felt the impact of their bodies on the fragile wood and knew that it wasn't enough to hold them out. The shower head wasn't going to help him, nor the drain in the floor, and definitely not the loo…

His stomach looked like a bloody mess. He held up his blood soaked hands and saw flecks of pink flesh and whatever and his mind burst into a rainbow of colors, as if he had just drank his special tea, before he fainted onto the floor.

The troggles, sensing they had won, broke into the bathroom with the frenzy of hungry wolves.

* * *

><p>Buddi heard the blaring of the horn at the most awkward time. Cubbi was following along behind him like a puppy, the younger cub boasting that Ursa said he would be taking the Barbic test of Bearhood, and unlike Buddi he would complete the test, completely missing the point of the test in the first place.<p>

"Should we go?" Cubbi said, looking confused.

It was Hawk blowing the horn, on the safe side of the city.

"I'm not up to throwing rocks at troggles, and I'm off wall duty right now. So no, we don't have to go. Should we? Hawk wouldn't blow his horn for just anything…"

They were torn, and Buddi thought things through.

"Ursa is jogging around the perimeter, and she made sure we locked the gate behind her. We'd better go let her in first…"

They circled back towards the front gates, feeling quite confident in their actions. Until, of course, they reached the now unguarded gate…

Which was now swarming with troggles by the hundreds. This was not the small band from the day before. Buddi barely had time to pull a defiant Cubbi into a quick car before the invasion began.

* * *

><p>Ursa was feeling vexed. No, that was not a strong enough word to explain her sheer level of frustration and uselessness. The horns had started blowing, blaring through the city like she had never heard them before...and she was trapped outside the city along the outer wall where there were zero entrances and zero troggles to fight.<p>

"DAMN!"

At least Gritty was with her, looking amused but still concerned as they ran as fast as they could towards the closest doorway. Hopefully Buddi would remember there were two other entrances besides the gates and had someone waiting to meet her at one of them. Or both.

"What a day for me to decide to go for a jog! Hellfire!"

She saw that the other Barbics had fled their posts to go respond to the first horn call, Hawk's rare puny toots near the broken ledge that the troggles surely didn't have any use for.

It was Buddi's frantic horn calls near the gates and then along the outer wall quick car tracks that began the more frenzied horn calling. The Barbic horn calls were coded with information that she could quickly gauge from the number of calls and the duration. Hawk's had said trouble, period, the only call he could make, short and hard. Buddi's, however, had been more frightening.

Breach. The city had been breached. Ursa made the backdoor at a heavy, tired clop and was glad to see that Rusty was waiting for her, with a sword and armor.

"Report!" she wasted no words easing into the heavy armor, a new addition to the Barbic gear since the Barbics had raided Ursalia's weapons room that first day. She never regretted the heavy suit of mail and leather padding before, but she did now as her muscles ached even more from the day before.

"The troggles were larger in number than we thought. Some of the troggles went to the south wall as a decoy to get us over there, so that when when they swarmed the gates there wasn't anybody there to stop them. They used the sticky stuff they threw at us yesterday to climb the gate then opened it from within. We haven't a clue where anybody is, but the Glens seem to be keeping the Palace well defended. I took the liberty of sending Grubbi and Sir Thornberry down to help defend them and sending the rest to secure the west quarter in case the palace falls and we need another escape route. There's a quick car shed there as well."

"Good work Russ. Do you smell smoke?"

All three of them darted their heads towards the west side of town. The smoke was coming from a particularly tall white building that Ursa recognized...and her stomach twisted in dread as Buddi's horn began blaring out loud and hard.

Death.

* * *

><p>Buddi and Cubbi raced along the streets quickly, their orders to secure the west side before the troggles had taken too much territory.<p>

It wasn't long before they learned that the troggles had already split up to harry their forces in all four sections of the city. A shrieking scream of pain jerked Buddi out of his running and he and Cubbi both turned towards the sound of the scream.

This was Gusto's house. Why would the troggles come here?

The trail of smoke from the chimney was the answer. They were going after anyone they could. They were going for the kill now. Hunger had forced the troggles into this. And now Gusto would pay for their hunger.

Both boys vaulted over the low wall gate around the storehouse, not bothering with the gate door, and threw themselves into the building proper.

Chaos. A trio of troggles were smashing pots, tearing canvases. Another troggle had found Gusto's stacks of white paper sketchbooks and was tearing out pages and throwing them in the air. And Buddi smelled the stench of urine, a sign that they had claimed this building as their own. The door of the kiln was open and heat was pouring into the room.

Both boys were ready for a fight, but Cubbi knew where his own priorities were, drinking down his Gummi berry juice and bouncing up to the second level to search for Gusto.

All right, that leaves me and these four furry wastes of space…

Buddi gave off a war cry and went into the attack with his spear aimed and ready to impale. This was no longer a matter of defending a wall. It was defending a life, and you pulled no punches when there were lives at stake.

None at all.

* * *

><p>Upstairs, Cubbi was having a few problems with the two troggle goons guarding the stairs. They were big, they were hairy and they had weapons of their own; a couple of clubs with spikes they waved menacingly at him.<p>

Cubbi had the disadvantaged spot, lower than them, but he still had enough bounce to get up to the window ledge just above them with a hurried jump and then he finished, jumping down behind them and kicking them both down the stairs with another couple of bounces. Buddi would figure them out if they survived the fall, for now he burst into the storehouse loft and looked around.

Silence. The broken room with its trashed furnishings was a sickly reminder of his friend, Gusto, somewhere in the mess. The fireplace was burning and crackling, almost a strange counterpoint of normalcy from the clutter. Cubbi was transfixed for a moment until a keening sound from the bathroom and a chuckling hissing sound suddenly woke him from his reverie.

He burst into the bathroom and froze.

Gusto lay prone, belly up, bleeding from an extremly ugly open wound where his stomach had been torn open. His eyes were looking glassy, and the keening was coming from his throat, like the keening sound of a dying ramma...

And the King Troggle was bent over him, jaws open, ready to dig in…

Cubbi burst forward in a rush, sword drawn, heart blazing, eyes firey, and all the training of Sir Thornberry, the Barbics and the Knights of Gummadoon came to the fore in an instant.

The troggle gave a horrifying howl as the sword neatly impaled its midsection, and as if to emphasize the act, Cubbi pulled the sword sideways, opening the creature's body and spilling its insides onto the tiled floor.

Smoke. Cubbi smelled smoke. He didn't have time. He pushed the dead troggle off of Gusto's body...

Gusto's eyes looked like the eyes in those pictures of his mother Gruffi had shown them. Lifeless. Like glass. No warmth. Nothing. Dead.

_No!_ Cubbi mentally shrieked. _NO!_

* * *

><p>Buddi came into the bedroom, short spear stained with ichor, and took in the scene.<p>

"Oh my Gum…"

Cubbi had lifted Gusto's lifeless hand in his own as Buddi started to blow his horn.

"Smoke Buddi...fire…" Cubbi managed to get out between choking sobs.

"Its the kiln. Everything's gonna go up in smoke…we gotta get out of here…."

"Not without Gusto…"

"He's dead…"

"NOT WITHOUT GUSTO!" Cubbi screamed.

Buddi stopped. He was completely startled by Cubbi's request, and seeming to not be in any mood to argue helped lift Gusto up onto his shoulders. The bear was dead, but he couldn't leave Cubbi like this, not after he'd taken down a troggle single handedly, and only at ten years old...

He was quite startled when he felt a heart beating against his back, and two arms tighten around his neck.

_Gusto's still alive!_

Cubbi followed him down the stairs, rickety and covered in dead troggles, the load of the semi-conscious Gusto a weight on his shoulder, the smoke filling his chest making his burden almost twice as bad, the feeling that Gusto was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't hear him in the sounds of the inferno raging around him…

_This is how Hawk must have felt...the day he left my father to die. He could only save one of us...and he saved the one who was conscious, the one who looked alive. I didn't understand why he abandoned my father to the flames. But now I understand. Now that I chose to save the other one, because Cubbi wanted it, the way I had wanted it. But Gum, where's Cubbi? I shouldn't have left him…! This is what Hawk had feared would happen to me that day!_

He suddenly found his burden relieved and hands pulling him.

"No! No!" he coughed. "Cubbi! Cubbi! Where's Cubbi!"

"He'll be fine Buddi," Gritty was saying. "You've had too much smoke, drink some water, here…"

Buddi did drink, and coughed his lungs out, and collapsed as the fire brigade filed around him to take care of the fire.

He couldn't think straight anymore. Hawk had saved him. Gusto had been, probably still was, as good as dead, but not Cubbi, Cubbi who still in the fire, and now Buddi understood.

Now, he had a lot to talk about with his cousin. It was time to let it go.

* * *

><p>Gruffi was first on the scene, as a coughing hacking Buddi dragging an unconscious bleeding Gusto fled the usual safety of the now smoke filled workshop. The fire brigade was quick to respond, being the Barbics that Ursa and Gruffi had trained together in knowledge of all the city's major water pumps. Now with buckets in hand they entered the workshop and barely managed to take in the sight of bodies before they started throwing water at the flaming walls. It was no use in trying, the whole warehouse was a dry tinder of dry canvasses, old wallpaper, and decaying floorboards. Then Gruffi saw a small form struggling forward towards them and rushed forward to grab his son and carry him out of the fire into the light of day. Another Gummi was soon next to him, a Barbic he suddenly forgot the name of, Huck? Or Hook? Or something with an H...who started smacking at their flaming clothes and offering the coughing Cubbi a cup of water.<p>

Hawk! That was it!

"Hawk, take over for me in the fire brigade!" he said, and was startled by another Barbic pointing Hawk towards the fire.

_Oh right, Hawk's the one who is deaf..._

The young Barbic nodded, grabbing his bucket and running for the pump in the yard. Lucky for them Gusto had a pump.

Speaking of which, Gruffi carried Cubbi over to where Grammi was bent over Gusto, her face tight with concern, her handsome features as twisted as a gargoyle statue's with her anger. Mokka, the Barbic medicine man and high priest was also bent over him, using his own hands to examine, to Gruffi's own sudden sickening realization, the gaping wound in his belly.

"By the Great Gummies!"

That was Zummi, and Grammi hushed him sharply. Mokka nodded.

"He can survive, but we must operate now…" they both quickly lifted him and carried him to the quickcar. Gruffi would have asked them where they were taking him but it was obvious; the palace infirmary was the only place equipped for surgery that intense. Zummi rushed off to try and help put out the fire with magic.

_Gusto...Dammit all!_

Silence. Silence in his ears, despite the rush of yelling shouting Gummis around him. Cubbi's trembling arms grasping him by the side. And his soft, young voice suddenly breaking the deafening emptiness with a sob.

"Gruffi...I killed him. I killed the troggle."

Gruffi jerked for a moment, and looked down at Cubbi.

Ten. Just ten. Only a few short years ago Cubbi was sparring with Sir Plucky in Gummadoon, playing at being knight, for a day. Now he was trembling and contemplating his first battlefield kill with the eyes of somebody too young to have ever seen such horror. Gruffi decided that this needed his attention more than his sickening worry about Gusto's possible death and carried him into an empty building to give him privacy as the boy finally felt the reality of the situation and lost his lunch all over his father.

_There are worse things to lose...much much worse…_

* * *

><p>Ursa was too exhausted to be furious by the time she stumbled into her rooms in the palace for a hot bath and some bed rest. The troggles had been blockaded in the west end after nearly eight hours of causing mischief in the city, and there were probably some that were still laying low in other places, hiding here and there, waiting to spring out when they were vulnerable to attack again. Between patching up her injured Barbics because Mokka and Grammi were busy with Gusto, and telling them to battle on, (unless they were, like Buddi and Rusty, unable to battle on due to being short of breath or having a broken leg), she'd had enough. In the end she'd finally left Zummi in charge of her Barbics, feeling bad about it but knowing his magic could extend the amount of time he could stay awake and that his magic would be able to find any hiding troggles for them. In fact he had offered, he really wanted to try his Seeking spell, as he called it, so she had tiredly waved him towards the still standing Barbics and stumbled off for a rest.<p>

The truth was she was heartsick over Buddi, and worried about Hawk, who had looked like a ghost since having a talk with his cousin. With talk being Buddi talking and Sunni slowly signing things out to Hawk.

Ursa hadn't heard all of it, just Buddi's last few words… "...Its not because of Sunni, its because you saved me, and left my father, and now I know why. I'm sorry for the way I've shunned you. I will never know if he might have survived, and I may never know...but I can't do this fighting anymore. You made the right choice and I'm sorry..."

They had hugged but poor Sunni! She looked heartbroken as a result, and Ursa had no idea why. She may never know, this was a problem for the young ones to sort out for themselves. She was feeling entirely too old now for that sort of drama, and her bones thanked her once they hit the mattress. Lucky for her she had a caring partner in Gritty, who looked under the bed and in all the closets before he stripped naked and joined her. No troggles hiding here. She cursed herself for her oversight as he sunk down into the bed next to her, a cheeky look on his face.

"No Gritty," she said. The big grey bear pouted. "I'm too tired. And I hurt."

He held her, and that was enough for them. Maybe tomorrow...Maybe tomorrow…

* * *

><p>Sunni was tired of stitching bleeding Barbic arms and having Tummi come into the kitchen with another injured Barbic, and then stitching bleeding Barbic heads! They didn't have that many Barbics to start with! At least the troggles seemed to have been routed, though they'd lost small parts of the city to them. Those Barbics still able to fight were regrouping and going around with Gruffi sealing sewer tunnels and securing the palace routes. Which were all of them, since the palace sat in the middle of the city. Darn their pride for choosing such a plush home! It was far too vulnerable! Why would the Great Gummis have their important leaders living in such an open and unprotected building?<p>

"...and then the King built the great aqueduct that we get our water from, but that second quick car tunnel was never completed…"

"Enough Zummi!" Joxer Barbic covered his ears. "I get the point! There's a lot of unfinished tunnels the troggles can hide in. If King Severus had been such a good king he would have sealed them off!"

This was more words than any Barbic besides Ursa had ever said to Zummi about anything. If anything good had come from this invasion, it was this. Sort of good anyways, from the look on Joxer's face he probably would have preferred the silence.

"Well the Great Gummis hadn't known they'd have to flee. Besides, they did leave some Gummis behind to guard the place. Its a shame about Thornberry's leg. He'll be hobbling along here and there…"

"Nooooo!" Sunni said, raising fists to the sky as Tummi came in with said Gummi bear in a stretcher. It was really a surprise that he'd managed to last all that long, the tough old timer. "I need to grow some more hands!"

"Heheh, its okay Miss Sunni, I'll help you fix these slackers up...we need em out there fighting!"

Groans from the injured Barbics.

"Come on Joxer, have a heart!"

Joxer was a tall, dark orange, rakish Barbic with curly brown hair, skinny limbs and like both Hawk and Buddi, was completely enamored by her. Yet another Barbic to choose from. But he really was older than her more so than the other two. Hawk was around Tummi's age. Joxer was Gusto's age, thereabouts.

Her stomach twisted briefly thinking about Gusto and switched gears into doctor mode, pointing Joxer to where she needed his help the most. There would be time for thoughts of people she loved in pain and danger later, there were those here that needed her now and that was her first priority.

But she mentally cursed every last troggle on earth with a fiery burning death. It wasn't likely to happen, but it felt good to think it.

_Hm….Maybe I should learn how to fight...Maybe Hawk will teach me how to shoot arrows the way I used to do with Cala...maybe…_

More than likely. Hawk would look for any excuse to spend time with her. And she didn't mind really.

He had the same sandy fur as many of the other barbics, but with a dark brown topknot of hair under his hood that she rather liked, and he had a spot over his eye like his younger cousin did, which was quite adorable.

She rather liked him. She wondered if he was the one. Or Buddi with their longstanding friendship...or Joxer? He was suddenly beside her, uneven toothed mouth breaking into a smile.

"Any further orders ma'am?" he asked her cheekily, as Zummi rolled his eyes in the background. Grubbi was ladling tea into cups for them and Tummi had gone strangely silent, staring off into space.

"Yes! Go fight! No, don't take any tea," she had a weird feeling about the tea Grubbi was giving her patients. "Go!"

"Yes...MA'AM!" he saluted her as if he were saluting Ursa then marched out the door.

_What am I going to do with all these Barbic men? Oh I know what Grammi would tell me to do! Spank them all soundly and send them to bed! Well, I'd better find a proper spanking implement, because I'm running out of room here…_

"All right!" she grabbed up a handy wooden spoon from the sink and turned and put her hands on her hips. "Anyone who doesn't want to taste my spoon will go to their own room to either sleep, bath or get changed and back out to the front lines! I start smacking in ten seconds. You hear me? March!"

* * *

><p>Gruffi barely heard the sound of something going smack before a long line of panicked bandaged Barbics fled out of the kitchen, a sheepish Harvi Gummi, normally slow as molasses, covering his behind as he quickly fled.<p>

"She's tougher than she looks!"

Gruffi peeked into the kitchen to scope out the situation and smiled. Sunni was bandaging Thornberry's injured ankle as he chuckled and complimented her on her bedside manner.

"What was that all about?"

"Something Grammi taught me," Sunni said almost too quickly, and pronounced that Thornberry was lucky enough to not have broken his foot after all. It was just a sprain.

"Keep the ice on it and keep it up…" Sunni said. "You should be fine. Um, he needs a walking stick…"

Gruffi moaned and turned right around and went to go get Gusto's from his own bedroom where he'd left it that morning. His hands were trembling as he passed the wooden stick with fabric wrapped handle to the old timer, who thanked him kindly and hobbled out of the kitchen before he could get a smack too. Sunni would never smack him though.

"Gruffi, are you injured, hungry or both?" she asked, clearly tired.

"Neither, I need to stop moving for a second and I need a shoulder to cry on before I go back to the barricade…"

"Have some tea anyways...no on second thought, skip the tea. I'm not sure where Grubbi got that tea but...well observe the results…"

Two Barbics, those that hadn't fled, were staring at the walls, and Tummi was trying to catch invisible butterflies that weren't there. Zummi was literally floating on the ceiling painting the ceiling with magical sparkling words. Mostly cuss words of various explicitness.

"Oh no, not Gusto's special mixture!" Gruffi smacked his face.

Both he and Sunni sternly turned to look at Grubbi, who shrugged.

"Well at least they're getting rest…have some?"

Sunni smacked him with her spoon.

Gruffi decided not to get Sunni mad at her anytime soon.

Joxer, who poked his head in around the same time, decided she would be a splendid Barbic, and winked at Gruffi with crossed fingers before helping her herd the tea-bedazzled Barbics off to bed.

_Oh boy,_ Gruffi thought, _What sort of son-in-law am I going to be looking forward to in the future? Barbics! They are all stark raving mad, the lot of them!_

Then again, they would have to have been quite mad to have lasted this long in battle against a hundred hungry troggles!

* * *

><p>Grammi and Mokka both stumbled into the kitchen at the same time, finding Sunni half asleep at the kitchen table and Grubbi sleeping in the chair near the fireplace. Mokka tapped the girl first on the shoulder, then roused Grubbi to come help him move their patient to a warm bedroom from the surgical suite.<p>

The Great Gummis had built a rather extravagant hospital in the palace. But the rooms were bare, slightly cold, and mostly pale white walls and metal surfaces. Probably to keep things clean easily, but not much for warmth, happiness and joy. The mind was just as important as the matter. At least that was what Mokka had told her once they had stitched the last stitch and determined that Gusto had lost too much blood and probably wouldn't wake.

Probably. It was mind over matter now.

_I hope he's wrong. I hope he hasn't lost too much. I'm sure that medicine Mokka gave him is more potent than that special mix of his…_

She struggled to get the pot of tea from the fire, when Sunni grabbed the pot from her hands.

"Let me pour out. You've been in there for almost an entire day!"

Grammi slumped down into the chair Grubbi vacated and Sunni put a cup into her hands that she sipped.

"Oh Sunni, its a rough thing. I can't even see straight. I don't know how Mokka knew what he was doing...I didn't even know what he was doing!"

Mokka had already moved out of the room with Grubbi so the two of them were alone.

"Grubbi said that Mokka has stitched the Barbics so many times he's an expert."

"Battlefield surgery," Grammi said, quoting something the other bear had said in the surgical unit. "I know any sort of cure you may need for what ails you, I can set a bone and stitch a wound. But Gusto's insides were outside. And now they are in again. I don't know how he did it…mostly I just did what he told me to."

Sunni's worried frown reminded her that she had no idea what had happened. From the moment they had arrived at the palace and carried Gusto inside she had shut out everything else but her patient. She asked for, and Sunni willingly gave her, a rundown of the situation so far. When Sunni started to yawn and begged off anymore work to go sleep, Gruffi stumbled into the room looking panicked and frantic.

"Is he alive? Is he going to be okay? Did you need me to do anything?"

He must have seen Mokka leave the kitchen. Grammi would have laughed but she had no energy left.

"Yes. No. And yes? Help me get to my room and into bed...then you can sit with him...We decided to put him in your room. Mokka wanted to know why, of course, so I told him. So if Gusto has any problems with that, by the time he's well enough to get out of bed, everyone will know and have gotten used to it."

Gruffi seemed to freeze, and stared at her, then chuckled.

"Alive. You have no idea how relieved that makes me. And how much agony I've been in."

Gruffi helped Grammi to her feet and together, sister and brother stumbled down the hallway to her room. At least some things you could depend on. Friends, family, and a warm fireplace when you were feeling cold.

* * *

><p><em>Cold. That was the first thing he felt. Then hot. Then cold again. Then he was looking at something he had never seen before.<em>

_Or rather someone. There was an old, regal Gummi bear in warm red robes looking at him. Long dark hair, and a scowling brow that reminded him of something...someone..._

_"You've slept too long...keep this up and you'll sleep yourself into your grave..."_

_"Who are you?"_

_"Severus the First, last King of Ursalia. Do you know I have never seen so many troggles in one place in my entire life? Nor my death, come to think of it..."_

Gusto blinked and suddenly realized he was perfectly awake, and looking into the eyes of a genuine bonafide ghost.

"What in the name of the Great Gummis...?"

"Ah, that's better. Really now, how someone could sleep so long...They are all in there you know. Your friends. Planning your eulogy probably...Oh come now! Don't look at me like that. You know about ghosts by now, the Druids introduced you to at least two, right?"

Gusto blinked, and touched his bandaged stomach, suddenly remembering the troggles, the blood, all of it, and panicked.

"I'm dying then..."

"Hardly," the former King said roughly. "You are close enough to death that you can see me. Now now, you look here young man, you are not going to die yet, understand? I will stop death for you, but you must do me a favor, young Oracle. Find the place where my body lies. Find the truth. Do this. Understand? I will take care of death for you. You take care of my burial for me. Yes?"

Gusto had no choice but to nod, and the King suddenly vanished and the cold that had been in the room vanished and he could feel the warmth of the golden fireplace and hear soft voices down the hall. He struggled to get up. He had been asleep too long and he was aching with hunger and thirst. And he was crawling with the need to bathe, and he wanted a nice cup of sweet tea. Never before had he ever appreciated the warmth of a good cup of tea as he did now that he knew he would stay alive long enough to drink it. He struggled out of bed, and ignoring the fact that he was in his bedclothes, stumbled to the door.

The voices got clearer as he approached the parlor. This was the room in the palace that was carpeted and warm, and had a big fireplace. Zummi would tell them all stories and the Barbics would all scrunch together to fit inside just to hear another of his gripping tales. The target of tonight's tale seemed to be the very ghost that he had just left the company of.

"The last King, Severus was his name, was killed one night in bed while some human delegates were visiting the city. It is said that this is what caused humans and Gummis to first stop trusting each other. But anyways, he was also an Oracle, and sensing his life was in danger sent his daughter and her husband away into the Northern mountains. And since that day no King has ever sat upon the throne. But before he was murdered, he made the Gummis swear to never go to war with the humans. It was the last law he signed before his death. And that, dear Barbics, is why then Gummis left, rather than fight with the humans. That is why. Not because we are unable to fight, or too weak, no you have proved that again and again we are not weak. No, my friends. It was the last commandment of our last King, and we keep that commandment, in honor of him."

There was a moment of silence, as if the Barbics didn't know what to say. Joxer was the first one to speak, releasing a breathy sigh.

"Well, I wanted to know...I got more than I bargained fo...oh my Gum."

The Barbic had spotted Gusto standing in the doorway and he was sure he looked a sight in his bedclothes, all sleep ruffled and stick legged. He felt as bad as he must have looked. Several Barbics swore, Mokka sternly got to his feet and the Glens looked ready to weep.

"Out of bed? No!" Mokka said. "You will further injure yourself! Back to bed!"

"Mokka!" Ursa said loudly. "He's been in bed for two weeks already! Let him stand!"

"Two weeks?!" Gusto said, his voice a rasp. "No wonder I'm so...dizzy..."

Since Mokka was the first to rise, he was also the first by his side to catch him when he started to tip over. This started the action of everyone rising at once, the Glens weeping, Gruffi taking his other arm in tears, and Grammi promising to bring him soup and tea to his room.

"Not my special tea though Grammi, for Gum's sake, my visions are really starting to get loopy."

And for some reason, which he just couldn't understand, they all started laughing.

"Loopy? Yes, maybe," said Mokka, smiling. "But it was your, ah, special tea, helped save your life."

"It did?"

"Yes," Grammi said, as she followed behind him, Mokka and Gruffi back to his bed. "Mokka had you drink an entire cupful of it before doing surgery on you, and has been giving you a cup every day. Apparently it's a very good medicine, kept away infection and slowed down the bleeding to boot."

For once, Gusto was very very very glad to have been friends with a Druid. Some things were just too precious to forget, and that tea recipe would now be one of them.


	3. A Sudden Hunger

A Sudden Hunger

More than once Zummi Gummi could recount times when Gusto had left him nonplussed. His skeptical recount of King Severus's ghost visitation on his deathbed had solidified Zummi's opinion that Gusto was sent here to be a burden on Zummi's expectations of the magical world.

According to the Great Book of Gummi only three circumstances could cause one to see ghosts. The first was having something in common with the ghost, such as Cubbi's insistent belief that he had helped the ghost of a Knight destroy a giant destructive clock. Whatever the truth in that, Cubbi had always been considered a shoo in for becoming a Knight one day. He was already fully recovered from his battlefield trauma and helping the Barbics clear the city of the remaining troggles. (So many troggles! Where had they all come from?)

The second circumstance, which King Severus had claimed was what had occurred, was the oncoming death of the person who was seeing them. But Gusto was still alive, potentially because of a ghostly intervention. The Great Book was silent on the matter of what happened after death, with only sparse mentions of ghosts, so this suggested the Great Gummis had not really solved those mysteries during their Golden Age.

The last way one could see a ghost, the one Zummi preferred not to think about, was for them to be seeking revenge against another, and they needed your help in some manner. Not always was this visitor a bad ghost, but rather was a ghost who could not rest until their death was avenged.

For this reason, Zummi was sure, Severus the First had appeared by Gusto's bedside. Asking someone to find your body for a proper burial seemed like a simple thing. But Severus The First had been murdered, his body never found. Some of the ancient Gummis hadn't been sure he even was dead, believing that he faked his death and fled to the mountains with his daughter. But if his ghost was here...

_Goodness! And where could his body be? We've scoured every building in this city. Every building we could get into anyways, this place really was a mess when we first arrived._

And it was a mess now. The troggles had trashed or burned every building they'd claimed. Zummi looked down at the Great Book, thankful that the troggles hadn't found the Great Library, and turned another page.

_Hm...Oracle gifts were more common among the ruling classes and nobility. People of sure bloodlines would pass their gifts down directly. Though, inbreeding often caused these nobles to go mad...and Gusto is a little bit mad. Is he related to the nobility? I should ask...but it would certainly explain his, ah, passionate faith in the longevity of egg tempera..._

This madness was so common, that Gummi Oracles often had 'mad' abbreviated to their names. Hence, the Oracle Mathibathi of Gumadoon, called Mathi the Mad. Who would purposely wake peacefully sleeping Gummis to scream his predictions at them. His mother had married her own brother without knowing it…or had she known?

_Maybe its not such a bad thing that Gruffi and Gusto are together, or that Sunni will probably marry a Barbic. Better than her marrying her own kinfolk!_

Yes, they were much better off with the Barbics around, Zummi was more certain of that now than ever. Staying together was what made Gummis a strong people. Splitting up into small isolated group was what caused them to dwindle out. Inbreeding also caused sterility as well as madness.

_Now then, back to the task at hand...where could King Severus have been murdered? We checked all the rooms in the palaces, and so had the Greats when this happened in the first place. They found his bloody scepter right here in the library!_ Zummi shivered and looked around him, as if a ghost might pop up behind him at any moment. _The Killer went to great lengths to prove the death, without a body to be found. Leaving bits of this and that with blood all over the city..._

Zummi started. That was the key. The items were put in very specific places. A common theme had to run in the choice of places. These were all places that the King had avoided to visit, for some reason or another, before his death. So perhaps these places were all places the Killer frequented and places that the King was avoiding because he had predicted his own death.

_One of these rooms. One of these places is where the body might be found. And I'll have to visit each and every one of them. My Seeking Spell certainly hasn't located the body. Gruffi thinks its because I'm not very good at it yet, but I think maybe there's magic at work here. You can't find objects hidden in the Great Library with a spell because of the magic that protects this place from being discovered using magic. So magic won't help here._

Still, one of the human delegates had been a wizard of some import. Perhaps a magic spell to hide the body had been used?

_Which makes my work a whole lot harder. If I could just convince Gruffi and the others that Gusto wasn't just having a hallucination...Then I wouldn't have to do this all alone!_

Zummi looked around again, feeling slightly spooked, and marked the place in the Great Book where he left off before closing it. He needed to get out of the library and into the warm sun.

He was feeling slightly chill.

* * *

><p>"Oh this is just fine! Now what are we going to eat?" Gruffi said, clutching at the sky for answers.<p>

"Each other?" Ursa quipped sarcastically. "Some of us could use to lose some weight.

She turned weighted eyes towards Tummi, who was sulking about breakfast having been cancelled, and Grubbi, who was embarrassed beyond measure. They were all out of Gusto's tea, mostly his fault, which meant Gusto didn't have any left to use as a painkiller. As punishment Grubbi was now wearing one of Grammi's frilly aprons, relegated to kitchen duty under Grammi's command until Gusto recovered fully.

Well, they were all out of nearly everything now. Examining the storehouses today after routing the last of the troggles has been a bleak affair. But it was too late to do anything about the destruction the troggles had wrought here. They had already been low on food, but now they had no meat or fish. Their chicken coop was a bloody feathery mess, so no eggs either. And the rammas has been let loose, some had been killed and consumed outright, others had escaped the massacre and fled the city. So now Gritty and Cubbi had gone out to catch the escapees, and to find more wild rammas to replace the dead. Not that there were many, the ones that were left in the wild were probably too old or weak to travel to better feeding spots.

"At least they didn't touch our Gummi Berry juice casks. But they ruined all the vegetables and fruit…"

Ruined was an understatement. The troggles had used them as ammunition to toss at the Gummis over the barricades. Nearby, Tummi was once again silent for the sake of Gruffi's bad mood, and looking morose. And hungry.

"We'll have to ration," Gruffi said, and Tummi immediately looked stricken. "Sorry guys, but unless we find a new food source quick...well…"

The large bear nodded his head, looking rather withdrawn. He had been very good about not eating between meals lately. He was looking a little firmer in the arms and legs too. Maybe he'd be alright, if a little put out for awhile. The Barbics, though, started complaining loudly about it and Gruffi turned to glare and silence them.

"Well, we have no choice now. We have to get some plantings started today, or the season for planting will be passed us without anything to show for it. We need pots and planters of all sizes, grab anything that you can find that could grow plants in. Anything the Greats left behind, metal cooking pots, helmets from old armor, barrels, baskets, anything, search all the kitchens in the city, all the storage buildings. Its fine if they are metal, I can put holes in the bottom of things for drainage, wood is fine if it isn't too rotten. Tummi and I'll take a quick car out to the woods and fill some sacks of soil. We'll see what we can grow…"

But they were still without rain, and putting out the fires had taken a lot of their water supply. They couldn't ration water the way they could ration food could they? How much could they afford to grow with their precious water supply?

_If we have to leave the city...well lets hope we don't..._

* * *

><p>Gusto tottered out of the palace as discreetly as he could. His ankle had long since healed up, but he was not sure one hundred percent that Mokka had zipped his insides up properly. His belly felt queer, and more than a little unsettled. Maybe he was just hungry? There was a ration of food and he'd gotten mostly soups and whatever bitter medicinal herbs Grammi could force down his throat to stop the pain. His tea was all gone. All their tea was all gone.<p>

Food. Gum he wanted food! But he didn't dare go to the kitchen, Grammi would just force him back into bed. Mokka was like a shadow, hovering just out of sight of his rooms most days where Gusto couldn't see him until he had gone farther than the Barbic shaman would like.

And this was why he was sneaking. He needed to get out of the bedroom. For one thing, Gruffi had taken a different room while he was healing, so he had slept alone. And sleeping alone had meant there was nobody to wake him when he had the visions, which were back in full brain throbbing force.

The other Oracles had barely acknowledged his return with a slight sense of relief. Very little information could be conveyed in these visions, emotions and vague sentences, nothing concrete like names, and place names were the only things permitted to be identified by title. So he couldn't even tell them why he had not been present the last few weeks. Mokka had kept him well and truly drugged until he had ran out of medicines to feed him. Now that the visions were back though, he wished he were stilled drugged.

The visions hurt less than before though, seemingly something had been loosed from his subconscious in the intervening time. Probably his will to fight for one. And the Oracles had become easier to communicate with. He could almost see their faces. He could see their calm and measured posture, though they mentally still sought the answers, as Gusto had. And now when he had the vision he would find them sitting, encircling the Golden Light in serene contemplation. Resigned to not knowing what they were looking at, and happy for the puzzle they had been given.

_Zummi said the Great Gummi Oracles would move as little as possible, staying still as much as they could, putting themselves into meditative trances, sometimes with herbs, and sitting in one place much of the day to keep their energy reserved. A vision is only possible when the Oracle is at his most peaceful. If I can achieve that, then I can get my sleep back, since the only time I really ever feel at peace is when I'm sleeping. If I can find a deeper state of peacefulness, then my sleep may be left alone. I hope so anyways._

He could feel the peace of the Oracles at least. And their annoyance at his lack of skill. They encouraged him to try and sit and just let the vision happen, rather than to fight it so harshly. It was a losing battle and he knew it, and he admitted to himself that he wished he had their serene ability to just let things happen. Softly he wondered how any of them could, with the feel the pounding of the hammer in their heads, the sound that rang in his mind that gave him a splitting headache...

This had an effect. No. They did not! His vision differed from Theirs. There were no pounding hammers or clanging sounds in their mind, only the light.

_"You are Closer to the Source of the Vision…"_ was their resolute decision.

So for the last few nights they had been trying gently to train him in meditation. If he could master their arts he might have a better chance of unmasking the meaning of the Vision. The closer you were to the source of a vision, then the clearer the vision would be. Since he was closer his chances of finding the meaning of the vision was higer than theirs.

_Its like Zummi putting on his glasses. It makes his vision clearer so he can see the words. The glass brings the words closer. I need to get closer to the vision to see it. Since I'm the closest I can make the vision clearer by clearing my own mind. Bringing it closer to me. I guess._

Which was why he had to get out of bed. Zummi was in the Great Library now, or maybe somewhere else in the city, but he hoped not. Zummi had believed him about the ghost, so maybe he'd help Gusto with his training.

_Hah, its ironic. I didn't want Zummi around me before, now I need his guidance more than ever. Oh, and here I am, at the library, and no Zummi to be found._

"Ah, there you are Gusto! Out of bed, of course. Quite unwise."

Gusto sighed and bowed to the inevitable, turning to look at the stern faced shaman who had been guarding his bed day and night since he had woken, and before that as well.

"I'm sorry Mokka, but I need to talk to Zummi. These visions are really going nowhere and I need to learn how to meditate, or I'll never get some sleep…"

Mokka looked at him contemplatively for a moment, as if assessing his level of exhaustion, then smiled.

"I will teach you. Zummi is studying the mysteries of your ghostly vision. It would be better not to trouble him with more than one problem at a time."

Gusto mentally agreed with that, stunned that Mokka was willing to help him.

_But then again, Mokka was one of the first people to believe in the possibility of me being an Oracle. Maybe Mokka and his interesting herbs and beliefs have something in common with what the Great Gummis believed._

Mokka lead him not back to Gruffi's bedroom, but to his own chambers on the ground floor of the palace, behind the dried out gardens and passed a tool shed. Mokka had chosen a small conical building as his own, separate from the other Barbics. Stone floors and tiny windows were hallmarks of this room, and there was a fire pit in the very center of the room, as well as hole in the ceiling where smoke could get out that could be shut when it rained. This had been an old smokehouse for smoking meat, not far from the main kitchen, but Mokka had transformed it into a place of meditation and study of the mysteries of life. Colorful tapestries hung on the walls and Gusto admired them for awhile before moving on to carved wooden masks and the odd things that he couldn't even begin to guess the ceremonial purposes of. For Gummis who hated his art so much, Barbics sure loved their own. Maybe only religous art was all right with them. There were certainly many Idols of all sorts here. This reminded him of the druids that he had visited, and the priest of his own very nomadic family. He'd never understood _their_ beliefs either. Maybe he didn't have any beliefs.

Barbics believed that strength was the ultimate achievement, strength of body, strength of loyalty, and strength of mind. Mokka practiced the mental strengthening techniques which helped to make him as wise as he was physically large and strong. And the Barbics often used herbal mixes to help them focus on their training, get rest when they couldn't afford to sleep, and as recreation. Gusto had often wanted to try their strong smokeweed, something which he'd avoided for its potent smell, but which the Barbics inhaled often and which was less colorful with its results than the druid mix that Gusto favored. It had a more of a relaxing effect, he'd been told. Mokka favored Gusto's long held need by tossing some of these strong weeds into the smoldering fire and filling the room with their heady pungent scent.

There were furs on the ground around the fire pit and Mokka motioned him to sit across from him. The smoke began to have its effect and Gusto felt himself relaxing, contemplating, staring across the fire stupidly as Mokka settled down cross legged, practically with his face in the smoke.

"Meditation...my friend...is the art of training the mind...to be aware of one's consciousness. To delve into the thoughts and find peace with the universe…"

And that was when Gusto's very strange education in meditation began.

* * *

><p>Grammi sighed as she looked down at the cluttered collection of things the Barbics had gathered for the purposes of growing food. Much of it was useless, but some of it might do. Grubbi had pulled an entire bathtub out of a house with no working plumbing. Which lead to quite a number of old chamber pots and ceramic sinks being brought along as well, and those would be good. The tub was a great idea and she sent the Barbics to find more old tubs. If the Great Gummis came back they could take showers.<p>

_Then again, with our poor water reserves who knows, they may have to forego bathing._

But Gruffi and Tummi had come back with sackfuls of useless grassy and weedy dirt that she wasn't sure could grow anything.

"Nothing else fertile anywhere," Gruffi complained. "This drought is gonna kill the whole country, not just us…"

Still, Gruffi was amused by the chamber pots, and delighted by the bathtubs! The rest of the junk, mostly old pots and pans for cooking, Grammi kept for herself. The old armor Gruffi had the Barbics take back to the weapons room.

"I said helmets. That's a lance. What am I going to plant with a lance?"

"I dunno!" Joxer complained. "I thought maybe it'd be good for hoeing or something!

"A lance?"

"Barbics aren't farmers, we're hunters, Gruffi," Ursa said. "Be grateful Joxer even knows what a hoe even is!"

The tubs and chamber pots were dutifully filled with the earth. Gruffi contemplated their small supply of seeds skeptically.

"Potatoes?"

"Probably be the best…" Grammi agreed, and the potato seeds were planted into the first bathtub.

The chamber pots were planted with some greens and small root vegetables. A rather long decorative vase became home to some carrot seeds. Hawk surprised them all though, thoughtful youth that he was, by presenting them with the seeds of all the fruits and vegetables that the troggles had thrown at them, as well as seeds he had been saving from all his meals. Tomato seeds and beans and squash, and apple seeds. The fruit tree seeds were useless but Grammi kept them anyways, but they planted the squash in one of the bathtubs, and a rather oversize round sink became home to the tomato seeds.

"Hawk saves everything, I'm not surprised," Ursa drawled, then turned to sign to her nephew with her hands as she spoke next. "Maybe, Hawk, you saved some of that tea of Gusto's?"

Hawk shrugged sadly.

"Enough with the tea!" Gruffi complained. "And if we did have more of that tea, it would go straight into Grammi's medical kit, for sure!"

_If Gusto or Grubbi didn't hide it away for safe keeping,_ Grammi smiled to herself as Gruffi went about instructing the Barbics to get the ramma fertilizer he had been forcing them to bag up for months now in preparation for a proper planting when the drought ended. Since the drought hadn't ended, they'd be using it anyways, and hoping it wasn't too late to plant anything.

* * *

><p>Gusto stumbled back to his bed feeling quite certain that Mokka had one upped him somehow in someway and he wasn't quite sure how. They had not spoken a single word once they settled into the meditation part of the lesson, but Gusto had not been able to concentrate very much, save for to take deep breaths and try not to inhale too much of that weird smoke which made him feel like he was floating. No, Barbic herbal smoke was not his particular cup of tea. But Mokka had sat there like a stone statue, a picture of serene unmoving peace and Gusto had severely envied him and struggled to find his own form of peace.<p>

But there would be no rest now, Zummi was waiting in Gruffi's room for him, with that sort of Zummi look that suggested he hadn't achieved much for all the work he had done.

"Well, I have not come any closer to finding the body of King Severus. I have, however, mapped out all the places where the King's belongings were found and…"

"Hold it Zummi, slow down. Start from the beginning. What about the King's belongings and why were you looking for them?"

Zummi took a deep breath and related his idea that the King's stolen bloodstained items had been discovered in various specific places, and his idea that finding all these places would help identify possibly where the body was.

"But it was a dead end, uh, excuse the expression. If there were fanything to be ound, er, anything to be found, the Great Gummis would have found it during their own investigations…"

"Well," Gusto sighed, easing back down into Gruffi's bed, wincing at a slight ache in his back from staying in one position all day. "Now we've, you've, double checked the Great Gummi's work. Anything could have been overlooked. It was worth it to check again. Maybe we should keep checking? I don't know. Some things are missed on first glances. Maybe tomorrow I'll come help you and put my gifts to good use. Anything is better than getting another lesson from Mokka."

"Mokka? Lesson?"

Gusto chuckled and recounted his own day. By the time Gruffi shuffled in, complaining about Grammi cancelling supper and needing to change out of his fertilizer stained work clothes, Gusto was ready for some good old shut eye.

Instead, a really smelly and grumpy Gruffi curled up next to him in bed and kissed his neck.

"Gruffi you need a bath,"

"No baths. Water ration."

Gusto moaned.

"Find a river. You smell like ramma dung…"

"And you smell like Barbic smokeweed," Gruffi countered.

Gruffi was really snuggling now and Gusto decided to put his foot down.

"I do not want our first time together to be a smelly stinky affair. Go wash or go to sleep."

The grumpy Gummi contemplated this, seemed to agree, then rolled over away from Gusto and did just that. He fell asleep.

_So now I stink, he stinks, the bed stinks, and I can't sleep and I really really wish I could take a bath now. Water ration be damned!_

But he soon discovered that this was not such a bad thing, this sleeping next to a smelly Gum. For it seemed that the visions were being kept at bay tonight. He slept better than he had in weeks and woke up curled up into Gruffi's arms.

_Maybe there's something to Mokka's lessons after all! Or maybe...I should get me some of that smokeweed!_

* * *

><p>Gruffi had his doubts about many things. Including the likelihood that all the planters would produce enough food for all of them to survive the winter, even with Zummi's secret attempts to coax the seedlings to grow with magic. Without water the magic could only do so much. He also doubted that Mokka's daily lessons were meant to help Gusto, they were more than likely just an excuse to try out some new herb mixtures with someone.<p>

But he was very very doubtful about Gusto's insistence that he find a new house to live in!

"You are perfectly fine in the palace! You do NOT need to move!"

But Gusto insisted. In fact he put his foot down.

"I need a studio. I need quiet. I need to be able to stay up all night sculpting without waking you. And I do NOT want to climb up all the palace flights of stairs every day. My bandages are coming off clean and I can change my bandages myself but I'd rather not risk pulling any stitches out again. I don't need much help sleeping anymore, Mokka's lessons have been giving me some control over these dreams, and Zummi needs me very little these days as the search for the King is going nowhere. I need to get away. There's no more troggles left in the city that we know of and the Barbics are back to their routine. Your seeds are sprouting. You're back to repairing things. And the weather tells me that rain might be coming soon…"

This was the first time Gusto ever so blithely predicted anything in a conversation with him. As if the weather talked to Gusto by rote and it weren't a matter worth arguing.

"Gusto!"

Gruffi felt that his teeth were gritting. There was another, underlying current to Gusto's need to move and Gruffi's dislike of the idea.

_Aren't we a couple now? Doesn't he want to live with me? Didn't he say he wanted to sleep with me when I wasn't so smelly?_

Other than a bit of cuddling and kissing, no, they were not really a couple, and nothing else had resulted. Gusto had seemed to return back to his skittish need to keep away from him, and Gruffi was angered by it. What had he done? Or not done? He had been there every step of the way through his horrible recovery! So what was wrong?

"Gruffi!" Gusto said, looking desperate. "I need a space of my own! Grammi has her sewing room. You have your work room, Zummi has the library…Everyone has a place they can go to do what they love and get away from everyone else. Except me! My studio burned to the ground, remember? I need a space to dream my own dreams!"

Gruffi couldn't argue with that. But it wasn't a happy thing. It wasn't a happy conversation. So Gusto grabbed Tummi and went off with him searching the city for a new home and Gruffi stomped off to his work room to pound away his frustrations with hammer and wood and lots of sharp nails.

_Maybe I'm just frustrated. I want him so badly now, but he just won't give. Doesn't he want me too? He'd outright tell me if he didn't…_

His thoughts really went nowhere all day as he caught up on his fixing chores, and he still hadn't found any peace by the time Tummi came rushing into the kitchen at lunch bursting with excitement.

"You will never guess what Gusto found!"

By the time the sun had set, the problem was out of his mind. His schedule had just gotten a whole lot crazier.

* * *

><p>Tummi was bored. And hungry. And...well he was just tired. And frustrated. Because Gusto had been dragging him around the city all day, complaining loudly about Gruffi, and Tummi didn't know whether or not it was safe to speak to Gusto when he was this loud. Gruffi would have been a no brainer; no talking while he was in a fit of peak. But Tummi had never seen Gusto so tightly wound before.<p>

"What does he think I am?" Gusto said. "I need room to breath and he isn't giving me any!"

"Uh huh…" Tummi ventured a sound, and was duly ignored.

"I mean, come on! I'm not rejecting him! I just want someplace that is uniquely suited to me, someplace that says, 'Gusto!'. I mean, Arte would understand if he were here. He understands me! I wish he would come back!"

"Uh huh…" Tummi tried again.

"Arte is being lazy and spoiled!"

Arte was staying at the palace for the foreseeable duration. Gusto had been very upset about that, but there was no use in his coming back to the city when he was being well fed at the palace. Grammi had been happy for one less mouth to feed, since Arte only ate fruit and nuts and they didn't have any to spare.

Gusto kicked at stones as he walked, and turned and pounded his fist on an ivy covered wall with frustration. Tummi watched him sympathetically, having long learned of Gruffi's ability to make other people feel like they were doing something wrong when they weren't. But now he was looking at the wall and thinking that there was something funny about the wall. And now so was Gusto.

"Hey Tummi, um, is this ivy green?"

"Green, yes it is...and...uh, very tall…"

Gusto looked up at the ivy wall. It was a barrier wall, one of the many that divided the city into various quarters. Gusto had never seen this wall before clearly, and neither had Tummi.

"Aren't we in a drought?" Tummi said as Gusto pulled leaves off the vines to examine.

"We are in a drought. The ivy on the palace all died out months ago. What is keeping this ivy alive?"

"Maybe a pipe leak?" Tummi said, and followed Gusto along the wall as the Gummi felt along the ivy.

It couldn't have been growing from the stone ground beneath it, and its root system was nowhere to be found. The roots were probably on the other side of the wall.

Gusto slowed in his walking, and Tummi could see the tell tale signs that Gusto was seeing something that wasn't there. Tummi was one of the few people who could tell when Gusto was being all 'Oracle'. And he was doing it now as he felt slowly along the ivy wall with searching fingers and a blank expression.

A sudden click and Gusto gave a cry as he fell forward, the wall he had been leaning against furling open at the sudden triggering of a secret entrance with his touches. Tummi rushed over to help him stand up, and they both looked through the opening in the wall with a certain amount of skepticism, shock and awe. On Tummi's part, hunger suddenly sprang to the fore, and a growling stomach was his reward.

"Go," Gusto said, sounding very strange, his anger from before completely forgotten. "Get Gruffi, get everyone! They have GOT to see this!"

Tummi couldn't agree with him more.

* * *

><p>Ursa stomped around the area perplexed, Gritty following along in her wake like a shadow, being completely silent, as he was, when she was disturbed. He knew better.<p>

"How did we not ever SEE this place?"

What Gusto and Tummi had stumbled over in their searching was nothing less than buried treasure. An oasis in a desert. This was a private neighborhood, a circle of abandoned manor houses all in a circular street that had been blocked off by the barrier wall that Gusto had found the secret entrance to. The houses and street all were overgrown with ivy and all of them had gardens in the back. But the houses themselves encircled a very large green parkspace, blocking it from view and probably were the reason this place was kept hidden for so long. From the outside it was just a bunch of roofs and a large wall. And the connected gardens were green, fertile, and growing quite well without rain, thank you very much. Many of manor houses, majestic and expansive, boasted orchards of fruit trees, quite ripe with their bounty, apple, cherry and peach. Tummi was happily munching away on some red apples, while Grammi had immediately set everyone to harvesting the fruit for storage, not that it mattered. There was enough here to keep them in fruit until the cows came home. Arte had no excuse not to come back now.

But it was only fruit. The rest of the place was tall with unmowed grass and weeds. Ivy plants smothered stone statues and broken walls and a broken down quick car. Which was discovered only when Sunni walked right into it and stubbed her toe. But there was no water to be found anywhere, though the fountains had pools of quickly drying water in their basins, as if it had just rained! Gruffi seemed to be more vexed by this than Sunni was by her stubbed toe. Gritty watched as Gruffi and Zummi searched the neighborhood, uselessly, for a water source. The children all ran off together in another direction. Grammi was now trying to convince Tummi to save some apples for later.

"Could this place be magic?" Zummi ventured a guess. "It would explain why I never found this place before…"

Gruffi looked like he was straining not to rebuke the wizard. Zummi rarely ever found anything except troggles with that spell. They all agreed that it was better suited to finding living beings.

"Gruffi! Zummi!" Sunni and Cubbi came running back from their exploration of all the gardens, Sunni carefully watching her step in the tall grass. "We found greenhouses!"

They followed the cubs to a rather large garden, which lay underneath a tall and beautiful house that stood higher than the others. The trees here broke out into a very obvious garden park, with stone walkways and stone planters and statues. A statue of a gardener lay in the center of all the connected paths, contemplating the ground in front of him, the crook of his garden hoe clutched against his shoulder. Gusto was studying the statue with an odd glassy look.

"By Gum," Gruffi said, approaching the greenhouses, which were covered in growing ivy, some of the panes of glass broken, the rest dirt stained and opaque. "This will be a great place to put our seedlings until they can be planted in the ground…"

"Its a miracle, this place." Zummi said, using his magic casually to open the rusted greenhouse door.

"But where is the water for it coming from?" Ursa complained.

"Everyone spread out and search again," Gruffi said, taking the initiative. "Its important that we find out where the water's from. It may mean an end to the water ration."

Gritty took Hawk with him and they walked along the tall walls that surrounded this hidden sanctuary. Some of the walls were ground level, with doors that were hidden by ivy, some of them secret like the one Gusto had found, others were wrought iron gates that led into abandoned backyards. Some of the doorways were at higher street levels, which required a staircase to get to and Gritty mounted one of these stairwells, climbing up inside the house to the level of the roof where he scanned the area for signs of a water storage system of any kind. Why, from this house he could see the main palace! Gritty turned to look over the houses themselves and noted how dark and abandoned the place looked. How the buildings towered over the area, tall, the way the Great Gummis built all their houses it seemed. Even the lowest garden wall was at least two Gummis tall. A very high wall to keep people away from what could only have been the source of the whole city's nourishment.

_And I can imagine why the Great Gummis wanted to protect this place. I bet the richest Gummis lived here. The wizards and scholars and the strongest of the knights!_

Some of the gardens were fenced in, attached clearly to particular houses, while others were wide open and connected directly to each other. It was such a large expanse…

"Only magic could have kept us from finding this…" Zummi was saying to Gruffi as Gritty arrived back to the yard with the greenhouses. This was the one Gruffi had already decided they would concentrate on fixing up first, since it was the largest. And the prettiest, if Gritty was honest with himself. "But Gusto siggered tromething as he approached, er, triggered something as he approached. Somehow his abilities allowed him to see through the magic."

"So you're saying we shouldn't eat this food until we know why the Great Gummis used magic to protect this place?"

"No no, or Tummi would already be in trouble. I mean, we should find out what exactly the Great Gummis were trying to prevent outsiders from finding when they fled the city. They could only have put this in place when they left, not when Gummis were still living here…"

The other Gummis had returned from their search empty handed, and were now sitting in the grass, waiting for more instructions. Gritty rested his feet for a moment, sitting on one of the stone crumbling benches on the garden path. Hawk gladly sat down next to him, then pointed to Gusto, who was still standing in front of the statue of the Gardener, despite the news that clay pots had been found in the greenhouses. Cubbi was tugging his shoulder asking for his help to carry them…

"No use there young Cubbi," Gritty said, and the lad came over to him immediately. "Gusto's doing his Oracle thing. Maybe the statue is telling him its life story. Best to wait for him to say something to us first…"

It was Gusto, standing perfectly still and not doing anything that helped them find the water source. They were all about to give up when he suddenly gave a shout as something splashed him in the tail. A spout had popped out under the ground and started spraying him with water. Suddenly all the statues, save the Gardener, jumped to life, spraying all of them with water, as well as the trees and the place that had once been calm and quiet before was suddenly a riot of spraying water from every place imaginable.

"Run!" shouted Ursa suddenly, and they all fled into the greenhouses and Gruffi, of all people, started to laugh.

"By the Great Gummis, its nothing to be afraid of! Its a mechanical watering system! Set on some kind of timer!"

"Yes," said Grammi, looking relieved. "But where is the water coming from?"

It felt like an echo. How may times were they going to ask before...?

"Its grey water," Gusto said, eyes suddenly free of their glassy look and contemplating the clay pots in front of him now, as if counting them to decide how many he could safely carry back to the palace with him.

"Grey water?" Cubbi said, looking at the water on his arms in suspicion. "It doesn't look grey to me!"

"Grey water is anything that we pour down the kitchen drains, Cubbi dear," said Grammi.

"Or the rainwater that goes down the grates in the streets. Drinking water is called white water, sewer water is black."

"Its probably being recycled by this watering system for the very purposes of keeping this space green," Gusto chuckled.

"Is it safe to drink?"

"Well, the Great Gummis set up a sophisticated filtering system in our water cistern," Gruffi said. "I'm sure this system does the same. There's probably a cistern underground somewhere that keeps the water until its watering time. Still, you'd better not drink any, its probably better to wait until I've tested it."

Gruffi had a kit with some special chemical mixture Zummi mixed from herbs that could show if a water source was drinkable or not. Mokka had really wanted to learn that special mixture but making it was so complicated that Zummi had simply presented the Barbic with a paper list of ingredients, instructions, and a boxed month supply of the stuff to use until Mokka could make it correctly himself. He never had, to this day, learned how.

They ventured out of the greenhouses once the chaos had died out and the green gardens were now soaked, as if the rains that had been gone all summer had suddenly fallen.

"Didn't I tell you it would rain!" Gusto said with a laugh, arms full of clay pots. "Hey Gruffi, I think I know where I'm going to live."

"I can't blame you…" Gruffi chuckled. "This place is kind of amazing. And the houses around here are well guarded by high walls and protected by that magic...Its certainly safe from troggles. Maybe we should all move here. Right Zummi?"

"Right," Zummi was now looking at the statue of the Gardener, and frowning. "Gusto...wasn't this statue looking down before?"

Gusto turned at the comment, and stared at the statue in horror. It was true, the gardener was now standing, upright, and looking at the house next to this one, with a wall that towered over them like a mountain and a house that looked like a Carpy would be at home there, it was quite tall. The Gardener's face was no longer contemplative, it was now angry, and fierce, the beard furled, and the hoe pointing menacingly towards the wall.

"You're right Zummi," Gritty said, since Gusto could say nothing at all, and they all gathered around the statue.

Statues didn't move. But this one had. Gruffi looked for signs of a mechanism, but no mechanism could explain the change in its face, its expression and posture. They all looked up at that tall tall building, dark and dour as a tombstone.

"I guess that's NOT where I'm going to live…" Gusto said, clutching his arms with his hands, his teeth chattering and his eyes dilated.

Gritty couldn't agree with him more.

* * *

><p>"At least something good came of the troggle attack," Gruffi said, as they sat around the crowded dinner table eating.<p>

It was nice to have food again, but eating only fruit would not due. They would need some meat and vegetables soon. Gruffi was already planning out on paper how they would plant the fertile grounds just beyond their windows. Their planted pots and tubs had been moved here where there was water. The seedlings would be moved properly to the ground once their roots were large enough.

"What do you mean?" Grammi said, as she doled out more hot baked apples to the ravenous hoard.

"If Gusto hadn't wanted to find his own space we might never had found this place…"

Moving from the palace to one of these garden houses was no small task, and they had barely scratched the surface of all the work that would need to be done, the clearing out of broken objects and old things and the moving in of their own belongings. Mokka had declined leaving his smokehouse so they had left him there in peace. The Barbics had not wanted to move either at first, preferring the large spacious palace to spar. Zummi said it was foolish, they all knew better now that the palace was not very well guarded and that there was plenty of room in this hidden street for duelling. But if the Barbics wanted the palace all to themselves, nobody was going to stop them. They had all been crowded together in that place for so long it was a bit like home to them now.

Finally the Barbics decided that the large house with a good view of the palace that Gritty found was fine, and so now they lived there. It was tall enough that they could observe the area for danger, and big enough for their numbers. The rest of the Gummis had chosen the house with the greenhouse garden, next to the house that Gusto had been terrified of. Thornberry was staying in a tiny gatehouse near the secret entrance Gusto had found, probably so he could act as gatekeeper, one of the things he had done before the troggles had invaded. Gusto had called their new house The Great Glenhouse, a name that had stuck in use. The Barbics simply called their new home 'Barbic Territory' and had put up a sign saying as much.

The sound of the Barbics fighting, laughing and breaking things ensued. They had done that for weeks after they had first moved into the city. It was their way of 'clearing out the junk'. Keeping only what was useful to their needs. Everything else was target practice.

"I can't imagine what the Barbics could be doing in their house right now," Gusto grumbled, poking his apples. "More artistic critiques with swords and arrows I bet…"

Why had they all moved? Gruffi sat back and looked at Zummi. They had been spooked by the troggle invasion for certain. And the relative safety of this sheltered place, both physical, and magical, had called to them. Each and every Glen Gummi there knew what it was like to want to live close to trees. Maybe the Barbics had finally remembered their kinship to their own lost woods. They certainly weren't afraid of troggles, but had hated the big beds and huge fireplaces of the palace the first time they had tried them. To cushy and soft for tough folks like them.

But they had been truly spooked by the mechanical watering mechanism. And the statue. If that wasn't enough to keep them all away, nothing was.

"Well, I'm going to bed," Gusto said suddenly, getting to his feet. "If I can sleep at all, I'm feeling rather unsettled by that spooky house. I don't know if its just me or the Oracle thing, but I do not like that house."

"Its not just you..." Sunni said, and she started shivering a little herself. "Do you need somebody to walk with you?"

"Nah, I'll survive..."

Gusto had chosen one of the smaller houses for his studio apartment, far away from the spooky tall house the Gardener had been glaring at, and vacated their company now with an unhappy and tired stomp to his step. Gruffi felt a momentary sorrow that he had decided not to live with them here despite all the room he would now have for painting no matter which room he was in. The Barbics would not bother him here or destroy his paintings!

_Zummi says he needs quiet and isolation to meditate in. Am I going to lose him to meditation of all things?_

No, he really hoped not. Finding this place was a miracle. And miracles did not lead to unhappy endings.

Not, usually anyways. But the look on the statue's face had been troubling him since he had sat down long enough to think about it. If the Statue was magic, and it was warning them, maybe living right next to the source of its troubles was not the wisest course of action to take.

* * *

><p>Gruffi had a rather interesting surprise when he went to bed that night. He had been one of the last to go to bed, still contemplating the statue and its warnings by the time he discovered what time it was, and mentally switched his thinking to all the work they still needed to do tomorrow to make this mansion their home.<p>

If you could call it that; not quite a palace, but too cozy and luxurious with all its warm fireplaces and glass windows to be called humble, this place reminded Gruffi far too deeply of Gummi Glen for his liking. They had chosen it for its closeness to the greenhouses, but now Gruffi was thinking that the same people who built Gummi Glen must have at one time lived around here. These houses were all warm and comfortable that way. Very much a Gummi House. It was a little bit painful, he'd have to get used to the nostalgic feeling he got walking down the halls.

At any rate, he had snuffed the hall lamps, usually something Grammi did, and put his troubles out of his mind and went to his room, all the chores for the next day going through his mind in a list.

It all went out the door at the sight of Gusto, completely naked and dozing on the rug by the fire. The fireplace was crackling, all of Gruffi's clothes and belongings had somehow been put away, and Gusto's own clothes were hanging inside the half-open closet next to his own. The boxes he had brought here earlier were gone, and the rug that he had found in one of the other houses, and secretly wanted to bring but decided would wait until the next day, was already here, unrolled by the fire. And it was on this lovely soft item, that Gruffi had secretly coveted for its luxurious softness, that his beloved had chosen to stretch out on, sans apparel.

Gruffi gaped momentarily and then Gusto seemed to wake a little bit, realizing he was here.

"Took you long enough," he murmured. "I had to do all of this myself…and its a good thing I'm an Oracle or I wouldn't have known what to bring."

Gruffi stared as Gusto sat up, looking handsome and sexy and staring at the fire, as if he was normally naked by the fire every day.

"Gusto…" Gruffi said, unable to say anything else.

Silence. Gusto was still looking at the fire. Then he smiled a little.

"I never said I didn't want to sleep with you. I only wanted a place of my own to go when I need some space…but I really don't want to be alone tonight. Do you?"

Gruffi suddenly came back to himself.

"Uh, my goodness no. In fact, uh, I'm just going to...uh join you...and…"

He was crossing the room, pulling off his shirt, and noted only briefly the alarm in Gusto's eyes before scooping him up and kissing him thoroughly and passionately. Gusto pushed him away briefly.

"D...don't hurt me!"

"Hurt you?" Gruffi was momentarily stunned. "Gusto, I would never ever hurt you...I want to make love to you!"

"I…" Gusto looked red faced and sheepish. "I just…"

Gruffi chuckled and kissed him again.

"I won't do anything you don't want me to do, I swear…"

"I don't know what I want you to do...I don't know how…"

Gruffi blanked for a moment. Then it hit him.

_A virgin! Gusto's a virgin! Oh boy. How had I not thought of that? He seems so worldly..._

Now it aaaaall made sense. Gruffi chuckled.

"Well, I'm going to show you exactly how, and you will very quickly learn where you want to go…"

And he did.

* * *

><p>Gusto woke feeling dreamy and happy, and not the least bit tired. Gruffi's ministrations last night clearly were enough to keep the visions at bay.<p>

_Gruffi's ministrations could wake the dead,_ Gusto decided, thinking pinkly of how much he had yelled and called his lover's name. He really hoped everyone else had been firmly sleeping. _At least he didn't use the back door…_

That was what his brothers had teasingly called it. Going in the back door. Much fun for the visitor, not to much for the person on the receiving end of things. But Gruffi had decided not to, for Gusto's sake probably. It was their first time so it would have been well worth any pain, but Gruffi wanted Gusto's first time to be memorable and painless...and boy had it been memorable!

_My brothers could scare a ghost, the way they talked about sex…_ Gusto thought in annoyance. _As soon as they learned I liked guys they started in on me. I bet they had no idea either way._

He'd told Gruffi about his brother's teasing, and had been teased in return, saying that they had probably been trying to scare him and nothing more.

_And all my fears were all put to rest. Mother was right. I should have listened to her. "Sex is a wonderful thing," she'd said. Boy was she right! But how are we ever going to explain to Grammi why this nice carpet needs to be washed when it hasn't been used in five hundred years?_

"Accident," Gruffi said, and only then did Gusto realize that he had spoken that out loud. "Grammi doesn't ask questions like that anyways. You should have seen all the things Mandi used to give her to clean up the next day…"

Gusto didn't want to know. Then again, he was curious about what it would be like to make love on that couch in the parlor upstairs…

It didn't matter, as Gruffi had rolled on top of him again and was kissing and rubbing against him again.

_Making up for lost time. I'm not complaining. I just hope nobody else will. My father and uncles were like the black death upon me when THEY learned what gender I preferred!_

No turning back now.


	4. Broken Dawn

~~~Fixed this chapter, and previous chapters, and moved part of this chapter into the next. Consider this whole fanfic under construction until its completed and I say its all fixed.

Broken Dawn

Morning broke upon Dunwyn castle, soft and red and orange, all the colours of bright joy that Cala equated with a day of joy. She stretched, and rolled over and smiled, taking in sight of of her lover, consort and future husband.

Cavin gave a soft breathy sigh, but did not wake as she moved. He could sleep through an avalanche, she had discovered. She only hoped he wouldn't sleep through the birth of their first child.

_Father doesn't know yet, I don't think. But he doesn't understand why I'm rushing to wed, maybe if he knew...but he doesn't know Cavin sleeps in my rooms. The servants don't know about that secret passage between my room and the rest of the castle. It would be an embarrassment and scandal for him._

"Cavin, wake up dear, my maids will be here soon to dress me..."

Cavin stirred, murmured something about "Ogres in the forest again," and rolled over...

And went straight back to sleep.

"Cavin!" said a little more sternly this time, but not with less love. "It would be a scandal if they found you with me before we are properly wed."

Cavin opened one sleepy eye, then smiled at her.

"It'll be a scandal anyways, when the baby is born months too early...and you're going to show soon..."

"You have a point," Cala conceded. "But there have been, as you said, ogres in the woods and you have training this morning and I have a meeting with the the cardinals to discuss the details of my ball, so today would not be a good day to start a scandal..."

"Point taken," he stretched his muscles and shook his shaggy hair. "Those cardinals are just trying to set you up with somebody of more noble lineage. I say we just go to the chapel and get married. Let the people complain."

Cavin had spent most of his youth worrying about what people thought of him, especially her, whereas she did anything she wanted without caring what people thought, much to everyone's distress. Now the tables were turned, now she wanted nothing more than to meet the approval of all these people she soon would rule and Cavin, who had seen too much fighting lately, didn't give a fig.

But sixteen was too young to marry, even for a knight. And she was two years older than him, and was expected to marry soon. Only by royal permission would Cavin be able to wed her. Her father was hesitating. He had no reason to approve it before Cavin turned seventeen in four months. But by then the whole country would know about the baby.

"We'll have to tell father then. Today, after lunch...hopefully it'll be one of his better days."

Cavin dressed quietly and gave her a comforting kiss on the cheek.

"Lets hope nothing comes up in the meantime that I'll have to deal with. Or that conversation may be delayed another day..."

"As long as it happens before I start to show."

Cavin kissed her again, and left quickly out the secret door. Cala did a cursory search of the room to make sure there was nothing incriminating, then moved herself into the centre of the bed, before the first of her maids knocked on her door.

"My lady? Are you awake? It's too nice a day to stay quietly abed..."

It was a lovely day. Her maid was right about that.

* * *

><p>Sunni stuck her head up out of the trap door, smiled, and looked down behind her.<p>

"Coast is clear!" She called, and jumped out into the room.

Cala's bedroom was deserted, which they expected, but Sunni was hoping...yes! There was Arte fast asleep on his perch.

"Hey Arte!" Cubbi said coming out of the trap door. "Wake up, Gusto's here!"

Poor Gusto. Sunni could tell he had not wanted to come on their trip to Dunwyn. But the Barbics had gone hunting again, this time a long three day journey they hoped would turn up something more tangible than a few small rodents. Joxer, Buddi and Hawk had gone with them, leaving Sunni relieved. She was tired of the constant attention now that the competitors for her hand had made themselves known, and Gusto, being Gruffi's lover now, had been commandeered to act as Sunni's official chaperone by Grammi and Zummi. And even though there were no potential suitors here, for some reason she wasn't permitted to travel alone anymore. Gusto thought it was ludicrous old fashioned nonsense, and had hated being equated with a mother figure for her. But something about a stained carpet had been brought up and Gusto had backed down from the argument. Gruffi hadn't even bothered to fight it.

"Hey, Arte you fat, lazy useless ball of feathers, wake up!"

Arte jumped to attention, fluffed his feathers wildly, then blinked.

"Oh, hello. Have we met?"

Gusto smacked himself in the face. Sunni giggled, and Cubbi picked up Arte for his own protection.

"So, shall we go find the Princess?"

"She's got a meeting today, might have to wait," Arte said with a yawn. "But Cavin should be around, training."

"All right, let's go talk to Cavin then," Gusto said. "He can tell Cala our news..."

"Aw come on Gusto, we can at least spend the night, spend some time with them."

"You can spend time with them tonight," Arte spoke up. "Cavin always sneaks back here after dark."

"Oh, so they're that close now?" Gusto said, eyebrow raised.

"Just don't mention the fact that she's showing. Everyone else in the castle has guessed about their affair by now except the King. Unless he's hiding it for her sake. But once her belly starts getting bigger..."

"..."

Sunni, could well understand Gusto's silence. Cala was only a couple years older than her. A baby? Already?

"Sunni, you know, Cubbi has a good point. We should stay, a week at least, I bet the Barbics are back by now, no rush to go back yet. The city will be fine without us..."

Gusto was shuffling her now to the secret door in a very parental fashion. Maybe he was starting to take his chaperone duties seriously.

_I hope he knows what he's doing because I sure don't!_

* * *

><p>Cala and Cavin were happy with their news about the garden, upset about the troggle invasion, glad that Gusto was alive, sad that Arte would be going back to the city with them when they left and alarmed by the idea of a statue that could move!<p>

"It doesn't move when we can see it," Gusto said, sitting in the remains of Gummi Glen where they had set themselves up for the night. It had become overgrown with weeds over the years, and had been left that way on purpose to hide the fact that they still sometimes used it. "Only when our backs are turned. It was outright pointing the way to the old schoolhouse. We found a ton of old books there that hadn't been destroyed by time. Zummi has been entrenched in them ever since. Mostly history books, things the children of the city had been learning before they left. He says its quite interesting..."

Gusto pointedly kept to himself the fact that every night before sundown, the Gardener would turn towards the dark tall building behind the tall wall next door, with his hoe raised and posed as if for battle. They hadn't been able to find a doorway or entrance into the building yet, the whole thing seemed to be sealed with a brick barrier wall, keeping whatever was inside, inside, and them out. And they really didn't want to dig any further into this mystery until they could. Zummi's magic hadn't discovered a way in, so they were stuck for now. Probably it was for the best.

And neither Sunni nor Cubbi knew that food was going missing from their stores. Tummi and Grubbi has both been blamed at first and Ursa had set Hawk one night to guarding the food. Neither Gummi blamed had been seen, but the food had still gone missing. Nobody knew how, but Hawk had looked embarrassed. It was possible there was an intruder, but Hawk hadn't heard him. Ursa then stupidly replaced him with someone with working ears, instead of having him team up with another Barbic, causing the youth to feel even more singled out and humiliated.

But still, whatever was stealing their food could not have been a normal creature to have been able to slip in and out unnoticed for so long.

"So Cala, when are you going to get married?"

Cala smiled at Sunni and Gusto had to admit, she was glowing quite a bit.

"Hopefully before Cavin heads North. Father finally gave in, and its a good thing, we were getting a little worried about the timing," she put a hand on her belly pointedly.

Not quite showing yet, but Arte, as a bird, was more intuitive than people so he may have cottoned on before any of them.

"So Sunni. Have any young suitors of your own yet?"

Sunni giggled, and Cubbi rolled his eyes, getting up pointedly to go for a walk, or rather, to scan the perimeter, and Cavin joined him.

"Oh plenty, at least three, and Gusto's my chaperone now. I can't go anywhere without him!"

Gusto looked up to the ceiling. He'd hoped she wouldn't mention that.

"Oh, why you Gusto? Aren't you a candidate?"

Gusto hushed Sunni with a firm look and shrugged.

"I'm too old for her. And Oracles, as I am, don't marry. Not usually anyways."

Sunni looked supremely confused, and eventually Cubbi came back and talk turned to other things. Mostly they talked about the Barbarian King that Cavin would be helping to drive away from their Northern borders. Gusto was glad that Cavin wouldn't be going any farther North than that.

"Haven't set foot in Dunwyn since Gregor routed Kerwin the Conqueror when we were young. Now they are everywhere, and not just the warriors, but whole families, all of them fleeing from something. There's so many different languages floating around here now, and so many mixed stories about what sent them fleeing. Monsters, is the general consensus, but which monsters varies."

"Hmmm," Gusto thought about this. "Those troggles didn't just decide to up and move into the area, not with the drought and little food to be found. Something must have pushed them out of their usual territory. Something that can scare Barbarians and troggles alike."

Cavin and Gusto shared a look, and Cavin mentioned the one thing that Gusto hadn't dared. A nightmare from Gusto's childhood he had tried very very hard to forget.

"Orcs."

Cala crossed herself with a gesture and looked at Cavin in fright.

"Oh Cavin, you think that it could be?"

The youthful knight shrugged.

"I don't know. There haven't been orcs this far south in nearly a hundred years. But Grandfather said that when the Barbarians first headed West as far as they could conquer, they stopped at the first sign of orcs, giving them a wide berth. If Barbarian hoards aren't willing to stand up to orc invaders, what chance would Dunwyn have?"

"Let's hope they don't come here then," Gusto said, cheerfully as Sunni was looking very scared now. "And be glad there's a large territory of wild space and Barbarians between them and us."

The day passes quickly when old friends come together, and they were all alarmed by the presence of stars in the sky, and the high crescent moon, when they checked outside.

"We must get back to the castle. Have a good night, we'll see you tomorrow!" Cala said when they finally left. Cavin followed her, winking at Cubbi cheekily before the pair disappeared down the quick car tunnels to the castle.

Gusto turned to look at Sunni and Cubbi, arms crossed, and then sighed.

"It's time you, and I, have a talk about human religious beliefs in regards to marriage..."

* * *

><p>The return to Ursalia was a quiet affair, with Gusto watching carefully the track ahead of them, and Cubbi sitting next to him looking out for problems. Sunni had Arte in her arms to keep him from falling out of the quick car, he was too sleepy to fly. Gusto said he was getting too fat to fly, at which Arte took off into flight to prove that he was not lazy or fat. Gusto still had not forgiven him for staying in Dunwyn. But he would soon, Sunni was sure of it.<p>

The lecture about human religion had surprised her, and upset her. Knowing that Cala and Cavin couldn't be told about her second father was horrible to her. She had never kept anything from Cala, especially not something this important. Gusto had said that they'd have to be careful, but it was really his and Gruffi's business anyways. They weren't married and until or unless they were nobody need know about them, except on a needs to know basis.

It still bothered her. She had been so happy that one morning that Gusto had shown up at breakfast, despite having another house of his own where he did his art. Gruffi had simply said he'd been sharing his room with him since they'd first moved into the house. The adults hadn't been surprised though. She'd wondered why. That's when they had suddenly suggested Gusto chaperone her too.

_Why am I always the last to learn anything?_

When they finally arrived in the city, the other Gummis had some news for them.

"Barbarians...everywhere."

And thus, the Gummis had new neighbours.

* * *

><p>Zummi Gummi was quite surprised by the gentle honesty of the first Barbarian group that had approached their city. Mostly women and children, and one old bearded man, all with large bundles of furs they wanted to trade, and they had been surprised to find Gummis living in the fancy remote city. Since animals were scarce the Glens had accepted the furs in exchange for gold, the Gummis had some gold things they kept for such occasions as this, and this had resulted in a sit down chat between the humans and them about current events. The Barbics had not been there and Zummi was glad for it, they would not have let the women anywhere near the city. But the women, Zaavlanders he was sure they called themselves, had promised they would not tell anyone about the city, since it meant they would have exclusive trade with the Gummis, and left in a chatter of strange Northern accents and the giggling of their curious wildling children.<p>

The Barbics returned, and were duly horrified to learn about what had happened, Ursa going on a rant about trusting humans after all they knew about human treachery, especially in the city where humans had murdered their King!

"But Ursa, we especially cannot forget what our King commanded us!" Zummi had countered. "We need to make peace with the humans if the Great Gummis are ever to return. Besides, they weren't here to bight, but to frade, er, I mean, they weren't here to fight, but to trade!"

"And they told us a whole lot we didn't know," Gruffi had interrupted when it looked like Ursa would start up again. "All the Barbarians are heading south for safety, a big orc army is forming in the North. That means an invasion for sure!"

At the news of orcs, Ursa seemed to forget all about the humans. She stepped up her Barbic patrols, moved Mokka almost forcibly into the "safe neighbourhood" they now lived in, with its magical protections and high walls. Then she had started training them all severely, and stockpiling all of the city's weapons into an empty building next to their own. And Ursa had tried to drag all the Glens into training as well.

Sunni had taken right on to the idea, since Cubbi was already training with them and Sunni wanted to practice her archery with Hawk, which meant Gusto had to go with her to chaperone. Gruffi had wanted to get in his own practice but was too busy redoing all the plumbing in the city so that the water only went to their two houses and the gardens. They couldn't afford to lose a drop. Where was all that rain Gusto had promised them?

Barbic practice was in the empty yard behind the Barbic's place, and Gusto was leaning against a wall when Zummi decided to stop by and see how things were going, staring off into space in that way he did now when he was having a vision. He didn't share the visions with anyone, and Zummi was itching to know what he was seeing.

Sunni was coyly getting lessons in archery from Hawk, intermittently being interrupted by Buddi trying to show off his own skills while Cubbi fumbled with his arrows, as he always did. Cubbi was great with a short sword but his aim was terrible with a bow and Buddi was supposed to be training him. But Sunni had proven quite skilled at it and Buddi was likely jealous of the time Hawk was spending wirh her. Not that Sunni needed any tutoring from either Barbic, she was hitting all her targets, fairly close to the target center as well! Maybe all of Cala's lessons had paid off after all!

"Come on Gusto!" Ursa suddenly said, stomping over to the listless Gummi. "Even Gruffi is training when he can, and Tummi too! Don't you want to learn how to protect yourself?"

This was the current narrative between the two. Ursa was quite insistent in Gusto learning to fight, since his encounter with troggles was nearly fatal. He would never be able to defend himself against a possible orc invasion!

"I can fight just fine, thank you very much. I was just caught off guard that day..."

"Prove it!" Ursa said. "Lets see what you can do with bow and arrows!"

Gusto looked like he had swallowed a frog. He had been very firmly unwilling to show off his abilities, if he had any, and now in front of his lover's children and all the Barbics she was demanding he prove his claims!

"Give it up Ursa," Buddi said, startling Zummi. "Its all just talk with him, I bet he couldn't even hit and ogre with a troggle bomb."

That did it. Gusto stomped over to the youth and pointedly grabbed the arrows and bow from his arms.

"I am only going to do this once. Because I am an artist, and a lover, and pacifist, and not a fighter. And then you will leave me alone!"

He took a little time with weighing the bow in his arm, sizing it up, examining the length of the arrows, to Ursa's disbelieving amusement. The Barbics laughed, teased, and chattered among themselves until Gusto finally raised the bow, pulled back the arrow and let it fly. It landed with a thunk dead center into the padded chest of one of the orc dummies they had set up for practice.

Silence. Zummi stared. They all did. Gusto let loose two more arrows, which both landed in the head where both eyes would have been.

"Ursa, that dummy is about half the size a real orc would be," he protested, and shoved the bow and arrows back into the hands of a gaping Buddi before walking back over to his wall to lean against it again. "Besides, you don't fight an orc. You just don't. Just because you can fight doesn't mean you should."

The next morning, a startled Gruffi told Zummi that the Barbics had tried to drag Gusto off to practice again at the crack of dawn. This time they wanted him to teach their weaker archers and Ursa had offered him the chance to take the Barbic test of Bearhood! He'd just berated their battle lust and had gone back to bed, warning them against any sort of attempt to fight the orcs if they invaded.

_And here we find out something about Gusto that we never would have otherwise. Ursa really doesn't know when to let sleeping bears lie. And she won't stop trying to get him to join her band either. I don't think I want to know what Gusto is going to be like when he finds out that Ursa has already planned for him to go on their next hunt._

* * *

><p>The other Oracles had decided to leave him alone. They were misty and almost non present now in his visions; not being able to help him discover the secret meaning of his own vision they had simply abandoned him to it. The distance between them wasn't worth the energy they had spent to try and learn things from him. And he didn't have the skill yet to block out such visions the way they did. He hated it!<p>

It didn't matter anyways. His dreams had turned into nightmares of screaming things and shrieking cries and the visions that had plagued him before were with him constantly now, day and night, whenever he rested his mind. The golden light was now constantly a part of his thoughts, and his head ached with the pounding of the hammer.

And the other Barbics had been bothering him every day now, asking him why he'd never told them he could fight, and where he had learned, and what he had learned! And Ursa on him constantly to join them on their next hunt!

"All the children in my family learned bow and arrow, we lived in a dangerous territory. I just don't enjoy fighting, Ursa, can't you understand?"

They couldn't understand. Why have such skills and not use them? Gusto was being unreasonable!

But he'd not wanted to tell them about his old Warren. Those memories were painful, like sharp knives in his brain. And the sound of the pounding hammer from his vision, he knew what that was now, he could not ignore that anymore.

His father had been a blacksmith. The hammer was pounding on the anvil as it had during his childhood and he could not ignore it. The vision of golden light had not changed, but now, now it was accompanied by nightmare memories of a childhood that he had been robbed of. A childhood he could never get back.

And every morning, like the thunder, he woke up screaming and sobbing in Gruffi's arms, begging him to stop the noise! Make it stop!

He was fighting a losing battle, and the victor was just a concept inside his head. If he didn't find the answers soon he was going to go insane.

_Maybe I already am._

* * *

><p>Ursa got up that morning, vexed as she usually always was. Gritty was already up and she could hear the Barbics laughing and teasing one another and probably looking forward to catching her at being last awake for a change.<p>

It was not fair! She used to get up before the crack of dawn! Now her nights were restless, and she could barely sleep. Memories of her father's resolute warning had been haunting her ever since Zummi had told them about the orc invaders.

_"He will live. You will die."_

His father had been a hard tough and incredible Barbic. He had traveled all over the North searching for Gummis to add to their group, and finally finding a husband for her in old Horns Keep Warren in the east. Gritty's family had died of a plague of some sort and so the young Gritty had been self reliant, tough, and had taken to Ursa immediately. Buddi was as a visual reminder of Ursa's father, and seeing him while she was in this state was painful. Hawk too, he had the same eyes, with the spot, just as Ursa's father, and brother, had done. Ursa had avoided getting spots, but she had not avoided getting her mom's hair and eyes. Her father had told her many times of that fact.

And her father had been afraid of nothing. He could take on humans, ogres, gremlins, troggles, whatever. But he never went anywhere near orcs.

_"Orcs destroyed an entire village of humans when I was a boy. No small feat. You see, the men were warriors, and they put up such a fight, so many archers and swordsmen. But there was no chance…as big as ogres, as mean as gremlins, and smart, incredibly smart, don't be fooled by their appearance, if you see them run!"_

This was the thing that vexed her. Her father was not somebody who gave up, or quit without a fight. He'd never ever faced an orc, but had been just as resolute never to have to. Resigned that there would be no hope of victory.

And to her way of thinking, there was always a hope of victory. Her father was the toughest man she had ever known, but that one admitted fear gnawed away at her soul.

_"Just because you can fight, doesn't mean you should!"_

Ursa thought over Gusto's words to her when he'd finally showed them his archery skills, as if the very idea of being able to do that with an arrow was ugly to him.

_Of course he doesn't want to fight! He came from a hunter family, like me, he knows what you risk living on the edges of the wilderness! And he left...he couldn't handle that! Well this is the edge of the wilderness, if all the troggles were any proof of that. We survive here just fine. He's just being sulky!_

But her father's words and Gusto's continued to worm their way into her head as she tromped into the kitchen, and as she accepted a cup of tea from Grubbi, she pondered for a moment.

"Nobody leaves the city unless absolutely necessary. I don't want a single orc to know we even exist…"

And she went off to her morning training, blissfully unaware of the horrors playing out in the East with every swing of her sword.

* * *

><p>The Glens were somberly waiting in the courtyard with the Barbarian women when the Barbics arrived from their regular hunt, this time bringing back a nice brace of good sized hares for their stores.<p>

Something had changed for the Barbics to have been so successful, and that change was as sulky glowering Gusto, who had finally relented to practicing archery with the Barbics, and then sweet talked into going with them on their hunt with a promise that they'd help him bring back clay from the river and marble from the quarry so he could sculpt.

He stood with the Barbics now looking sleepless and mirthless as Zummi brought them all together to relate what had happened. The Glens and Gusto all touched arms and grieved with tear stained eyes as the Barbic's stood back stolidly, morose and angry.

"Are you sure about this Sonja?" Zummi had pleaded, almost willing it to not be true.

It looked like the women had just escaped something terrible, possibly by running through a thorny patch. They were scratched up, their screaming, crying children were clinging to their backs, and the old man with the beard was nowhere to be found. Their numbers were less as well.

"Am sure," the woman had said, pushing her tangled hair back. "Many men from Dunwyn, went after Kauldric the Bold's folk, and Kauldric buried them. All them dead men. And one was your Cavin yes. My husband was sure of it. Kauldric is a rough sort, been fighting orcs for years," Ursa seemed to stir at this. "Didn't bother with talk, just ambushed em Knights. Now Kauldric wants all the folks they were protecting under him. All the folks. But we won't be, Kauldric's folk we won't be. His men make a mess of their women. Make a mess of them. We're going to new land. So this is our goodbye…"

A broken translation if ever was one, but the matter would soon be sorted out by Arte, who went to Dunwyn now in search of news from Cala. If it were true, then there would be no wedding for Cala. And Cubbi's bloodshot red eyes meant that they would never, ever recover from this loss. Cavin had been their good and stolid for many years and even the Barbics were grieved with the possibility that he was dead.

No King named Cavin would sit on the throne. With just one nearly 90 year old King in the Isles to the West as an ally, and a Barbarian King here in the North, a King that wanted Dunwyn's people dead or under his rule, who would help King Gregor fight the orcs if they invaded? Would Kauldric, who had fought them before, be their secret salvation? Or would Kauldric raid and pillage and leave them all vulnerable to attack?

"What is this King Kauldric going to do next?"

"Dunwyn, seems sure. Now there's a Princess and a couple old Kings between him and the South. We're wonderin' what old Gregor's gonna do about it..."

They all were.

* * *

><p>King Gregor looked down at the map in front of him and noted the new black paper flag in the north amongst the scattering of red and blue ones that indicated where all his forces were stationed. Blue were the peaceful sections, and the red flags showed which of his troops were on the offense. White meant a victory and black...defeat. He was now feeling the weight of 50 years of rule clinging to his chest. He'd ruled from birth, having no father to teach him, and he had born his daughter late in life. Now she would have to rule without a husband and her child would be born without a father. The cycle was repeating.<p>

But she would not rule alone.

Gregor hated the Cardinals and their missives of warning, their whispers that Cavin's death was punishment for his sin of child out of wedlock. Gregor couldn't disagree more. But the young Lordlings piling up at his doorstep were like the bile of an orge being spit on his boot, and they were the Cadinal's fault, so he'd sent them away. The Cardinals had warned him against this, and he'd told them to take their dire warnings back to the pulpit. Cala had not yet finished grieving her young lover's death and was already getting tokens of courtship from new potential mates!

_Enough of that! She'll have some peace if it is the last thing I do! And I have an ace up my sleeve! Oh Sigmund you contemptible bastard, your kin had better come through this time, or I'll have to go fight Kauldric myself! And I'm too old for that now!_

A long time ago Duke Igthorn had been a Knight of the Court of King Gregor. But before he'd betrayed the King, he had married, and his wife had given him three children. Children he'd abandoned years ago when he'd left Dunwyn, two twin daughters, and the oldest a son. His wife had left and gone North to wed some Barbarian Chief, who had converted to her religion and had become one of Gregor's stalwart Northern protectors. Until Kuldric had slain him in battle, as irony would have it.

Lady Adrienne, as she was called by many, had not given up a good future for her two daughters, who were both being schooled at the convent where Lady Adrienne now lived, and they were betrothed quickly upon reaching seventeen. Soon they would be marrying into good families if the pairings aligned well.

But her son she had sent into the North West as a boy to apprentice with Lord Tavish, who was a retired Knight living under the rule of King Ulther of the West Isles. Tavish was a battle hardened thick skinned toughy, who spat on the ground and cussed with his men with the best of them. You wouldn't expect somebody like Tavish to have the blood of the nobility in his veins, but he did. And he hadn't just apprenticed young Igthorn, he'd outright adopted him into his family. So Shane Igthorn had grown up as Shane Tavish, and had been spared the scorn of people who were unknowing as to his true heritage. He'd also been spared any sort of pretentious names. Duke Igthorn had kept his first name a secret as long as possible, and Victorinus had shortened his.

But before Duke Igthorn had betrayed him, he had made a private pact with Gregor swearing his newborn son to His Majesty's Pleasure, and had signed and sealed the deal with his own pen. Although old Tavish had no war with the Barbarians, and was in good standing with Kuldric, the young Shane was sworn to Gregor's service should he need him.

Now Gregor needed a champion, a Knight, somebody who could defend them against Kuldric and his men. Somebody who maybe had respect with the Barbarians and hopefully could find a way for peace between the two warring groups.

Shane Tavish was that sort of somebody. Gregor looked up as the twenty one year old Knight came sauntering into the Court, dark black hair tangled and unkempt, hooked nose disjointedly broken and scarred, chiseled jaw set in an almost permanent frown, and yet still with a handsome sort of rakishness to him. His father's unfortunate nose and dark eyes and hair were a dead giveaway immediately as to his identity, but the muscles were obtained by battle, not daily practice against dummies in the safety of a training salle. His determined stance was that of one with expertise, not a posture of boastfulness and pride.

And the rough clothes he wore, plain cotton tunic and leather jerkins many times mended and patched, the mud stained fur lined boots and gloves and a faded but well loved tartan cloak, showed that he spent more time with the people and on the battlefield than he did in castle courtrooms dancing. In fact, Gregor couldn't remember the man ever attending a ball here at Dunwyn in his life!

"Shane Tavish," Gregor said, keeping his promise to the lad's mother not to reveal his true parentage. "Welcome thou art to Dunwyn Sir Knight. I only wish I'd called you here before, I might still have a future son-in-law if I had."

Sir Victor had been brave to reveal his family ties, and while Gregor and the people of the castle had accepted him, there had been ostracism from the rest of the country. Gregor had taken pity on him and had given him a commission overseas defending their foreign allies. So Sir Victor was far far away right now. He'd be interested in the fate of his only nephew, Gregor was sure of it. But this man's identity would have to remain a secret, for now. As far as anyone knew he was an adopted child, with no notable parentage, and no nobility. But if Gregor wanted to put this man in charge of many nobly born Knights, he might have to risk it. He hoped Sir Tavish wouldn't need to reveal his parentage though. He certainly looked like he could command respect from others. And sounded that way too, Gregor soon learned!

"I'm honored, sire," said the man, and his soft, but potent voice had that lovely broken lilt of the people of the West. It also was rather silvery, a trace of the father, but with the birdsong quality of his mother mixed in. A unique voice, that had probably broken many a maiden's heart. "I just hope Kauldric gets the message quick that he's fighting in the wrong direction. He's as headstrong as a wild boar and just as hairy. More animal I think, than man. And the thing is, I know his family. His sons and daughters are just the same, just as stubborn and just as...hairy."

Gregor couldn't help but laugh at the description of Kauldric's family, but this signalled a troubling trend. If Kauldric was defeated he had a nice dynasty of heirs to take over his cause. This could be a very long conflict if they weren't careful about it. Revenge for Cavin was not the wisest course of action, no matter how satisfying it would feel. Revenge killing would put him in a blood feud with the man's family for many decades.

"What is he after? Do you know?" asked one of Gregor's nervous aids, Sir Bowain. He'd been a nice retired fighter, accustomed to peaceful inactiveness when the Barbarians had started coming down in droves. It wasn't something one expected in retirement, to be called back to the war.

"Soldiers and supplies," was the immediate answer, not from Tavish, but from one of the other tartan wearing men that had arrived with him. Gregor had overlooked them, their leader was just that dynamic. "He needs men ter fight fer him, because his own forces aren't enough against the orcs. And he wants more women ter father sons. And ye need lands and crops to feed such a force or ye'll be sleeping alone, fer sure."

Sir Tavish's chuckle made Gregor stare.

"As if he don't have enough womenfolk. And that's his problem. The men have all been killed and he's arming women now."

"At least Northern women are tough enough to handle fighting against men. Orcs are another thing…"

The strategic talk continued apace, in which Tavish impressed the entire war council, and the King, with his ideas and expertise. They would cede that North territory to Kauldric for now, and let Kauldric deal with the orcs himself if he really wanted to, since nobody else did. Gregor would recall troops from his relatively peaceful southern and eastern borders to buffer the north passages, and send messengers to King Ulther to request support for the unprotected west.

"You can be sure he'll send men," Tavish said reassuringly. "They have a lust for battle there these days, and the old King has four sons with no battle expertise that need some experience if any of them are to become proper Kings."

"Ulther's no idiot either. He knows that once Dunwyn and the North falls the West and South are next. And having water between them is no protection, Barbarians are well accustomed to that sort of travel."

"Its how they got here in the first place," said one the Ministers, Gregor kept forgetting the man's name, as he was a new appointee from the East. "We need to be sure our navy is ready for possible sea attacks…"

"They'd take the East route," Gregor surmised, which was probably the reason for the man's sudden comment. Ah yes, the man's name was Erwin. "Rather than risking attack from both sides through the Isles…"

A shadow caught the corner of his eye. Gregor had been completely unaware of his daughter's arrival, and now a dark black wraith was clasping him around the arm and leaning into him pointedly for support. He could feel her trembling.

"My dear, you should be resting…" Gregor looked down at his daughters sorrow laden face. The black clothes did not suit her.

"'T'was a sombre sight, a fair maid shrouded in black,'" Sir Tavish voiced this quotation of a famous poem himself, as if reading Gregor's thoughts.

Cala turned to look at him, confused about his identity, clearly, and maybe as drawn in by his uniquely commanding lilt as they all were.

"Cala, my dear, this is Shane Tavish, Sir Knight, and one of Lord Tavish's many adopted sons. Sir Tavish, the Princess Cala," he did the formal introductions, then to the young Knight's surprise went into very intricate detail with Cala about their plans.

Boy didn't it surprise the West men when Cala gave a very educated and expert assessment of their plans, and added in a few ideas of her own! Including the clever idea of recruiting soldiers from the fleeing Barbarians who were not too keen to live under Kuldric's harsh rule.

"My daughter is not uneducated in the strategies of battle, gentlemen. And is herself trained in the use of shield and sword."

"And stirrups," Cala said, her face turning very pale for a moment. "We sent all the horses north with the men and there's nothing for me to ride in the stables...except a silly old pony only fit for a tyro…"

"You shouldn't ride in your condition," said one of the ministers, immediately regretting it with the hard look she gave him.

"I'm hardly tripping over my feet here sir, and I can still see the ground to bend and touch it…"

Gregor kissed her head pointedly and looked up. Shane Tavish had a very odd look in his young eyes, almost as if he were assessing Cala for some hidden flaws.

"T'will be alright Princess," he said at last. "We brought a good twenty mounts with us when we arrived, and Ulther will send many more we can be sure. I'll lend you one of mine for a ride...if you will do me the honor of riding out with me tomorrow morning to the West border."

Cala favored him with a soft smile and a nod, then turned to look at the map. Gregor decided that if helping them plan their battle would help her get through the grief then he wouldn't stand in her way.

And she was no fool. A Princess who married a nobleman was marrying a future King. A Princess who married one not of noble birth was marrying a consort to a future Queen. Sir Tavish was, to all there concerned, adopted, not of noble birth, and a perfect match if they wanted to keep her on the throne AND keep the Kingdom well protected.

But secretly, he was also of noble birth, truly meant to rule to Gregor's way of thinking, and by the time her mourning period ended Cala would have been well acquainted enough with the lad..no, man...to accept a marriage of convenience for the Kingdom's sake. She'd still be Queen, with a husband who could protect her Kingdom for years to come. And her child would grow up with two parents.

And maybe, just maybe, Sir Tavish would be in place by her side before Gregor was in the grave. The pains in his chest were becoming tighter and harder, his short pained breaths becoming more difficult to mask. If the sickness got him before she was made Queen then she would be floundering for purchase in this very tricky and dangerous future that was unfurling right before their eyes on the map before them. If she was to face this dangerous future she would not do it alone.

He would make sure of it.

* * *

><p>Cala was rather surprised by the rather large draft horse that Shane Tavish presented her on the morning of their agreed upon ride in the country. He was a large and muscled beast, with an all roan coat, a dark red that was like freshly turned clay, and hooves as wide as dinnerplates...and gentle, warm brown eyes. These were the sort of horses they no longer rode in Dunwyn, instead relegating them to the task of plowing fields and moving boulders. She'd seen a few drafts lashed together pulling a load of several large felled tree trunks on a sledge when she was a child. That was when her father had told her that such large beasts had once been used on the battlefield, back when their armor and weapons were heavier and made of iron. Before when suits of mail were more common. The new breeds were lighter, shorter, and faster, and meant to travel great distances quickly.<p>

But she could very well see Shane Tavish, tall and broad shouldered, perched on one of these impressive beasts with a full broadsword and a shield as tall as he was.

_Stop it. These thoughts are...unfair to Cavin._

She adjusted her veil back behind her, reminded that this veil of black should have been as white as snow. It was going to be a trouble trying to get up onto this tall creature to ride it, and was duly surprised when Sir Tavish took the liberty of lifting her up, heavy black skirts and all. She hated her ladies for making her wear so many skirts. But the masses of fabric didn't fly up or do anything weird and she settled into a side saddle posture with little argument from her dress. She would ride like the wind with her legs straddling the beast once she was out of sight of the castle. Her ladies would faint if they knew.

The mare Sir Tavish rode was all black, with white socks and a white nose, and she was feisty and pawed the ground a little impatiently.

"I like to ride a more excitable, less trained creature," he told Cala as he mounted without any problem. "It teaches me not to grow as docile as a docile horse can be, to expect the unexpected. Knowing your mount isn't an obedient pup but has a mind of her own makes the ride all the more thrilling."

Cala grinned, enjoying this explanation.

"Plus, I get to be the one that tames her," he rubbed his hand along the proud neck as the beast turned her head back to bare her teeth at him, risking a nip. "She'll come to learn how wily I can be as well. Beautiful girl, ye are..."

Cala's blush was well founded. For a moment it felt like the compliment was meant more towards her than the horse.

_How can I be beautiful all in black? Oh I know, Cavin would say I was beautiful even in peasants clothes or covered head to toe in mud._

She pushed down her feelings of longing and pain for the man she had lost, and concentrated on urging the stallion out of the courtyard and onto the road. Shane and his men would send their messenger to King Ulther in request of more men once they'd reached the rest of their forces on the border. She'd be gone no more than a few hours but it was kind of a scandal for a mourning pregnant Princess to be riding with a bunch of wild West men without a chaperone.

_Let them stare. This ride isn't for them, its for Cavin. To show them that I was not and never will be ashamed of our love, or of our child._

Head high, posture proud, and, once she was away from the castle, firmly set astride her steed, she was sure she very much looked exactly as proud as she felt.

But she couldn't ignore the appreciative eyes of the men around her, and one man in particular. Her father was clever all right. She'd be married just as he'd promised before she'd been prematurely widowed. And this time he had chosen the man himself, not to hurt her, but to save her the pain of having to choose someone else to replace Cavin just to please the people. She peeked over at her potential second half, wondering what Cavin would think of this man.

_I bet he'd say he reminds him of Duke Igthorn. That nose!_ Cala felt her nose crinkle impishly.

But this man was no Igthorn. He was noble, if humbly born, decent, a bit grumpy at times but very clever and keen. He'd lead her father's men into battle and back again with ease, and charm the pants off every stuffy shoddy Cardinal and Minister of the Court before they could count to three. He'd be perfect, and his humble lineage meant that Cala would not be robbed of her throne by some ambitious Lordling with a sackful of gold and a thirst for power.

_And that is exactly the way it should be._


	5. An Apple A Day

An Apple A Day

Ursa tromped out to the Glen's garden that day feeling fit and in full form. She wanted to start training the Glens, especially the reluctant Gusto, in some sword techniques today, but immediately knew she was already defeated upon reaching their yard.

The Glens were out in full force, with rakes and hoes and baskets and trimmers, hard at work weeding, mowing, plucking, trimming and sowing their garden, the potato plants now transferred to newly turned earth, the bathtubs nowhere to be found. Rows of planted this and that sat greenly beside the greenhouses in their new pots, and she could see that the Glens had already been working very hard to provide a proper home for them; the greenhouses were free of ivy and the windows clean of dirt and dust.

Today, Gruffi was planning to transplant some young Gummi Berry saplings he had uprooted from the Dunwyn fields so that they could have Gummi Berry Bushes in the city someday. Saplings were easier to move, since their roots hadn't yet spread out yet. But it meant years of tending the bushes before they were big enough to blossom. So Gruffi was now digging in the earth, creating holes suitably big enough to take them. Gusto would bring him the saplings from the far greenhouse near the Glenhouse to the back of the yard, where Gruffi would take the saplings from their pots and carefully put them into the ground. And visiting Dunwyn to transport the saplings had given the Glens a chance to visit Cala and console her.

_Of course I've never seen them so angry after a visit to their human friends in my whole life!_

Cala's father had already chosen a second fiance for her, for the sake of the Kingdom. Gregor had to choose for her, since she was too bereft to pick herself, because the Cardinals would have excommunicated her for child out of wedlock if she hadn't agreed to marry.

_Excommunication. Whatever that means. Sounds awful. Why do humans have to complicate their religions with so many silly laws that only restrict what they can do?_

Still, when Gruffi and the Glens set their mind to something, they really set their mind to something. They weren't going to let their grief and anger keep them from getting their tasks done, and perhaps this was their way of making sure the grief didn't destroy their souls! Nothing was more purifying then pulling sharp thorny weeds from the earth and watching seedlings sprout. There would be vegetables to go with their fruit soon, thanks to Zummi's tireless magic encouragement and the water that the watering system provided each day without fail. And now they had chickens and goats! Gifts of their new Barbarian neighbours.

These new Barbarians that had dropped by with the animals had been men, mostly armed and on horseback, which had frightened them all until they had said they were the husbands of the women that had been trading with them, and were grateful for the gold far in excess of what they felt the furs were worth. Hence the animals. These men had not fled with their women to the safer south, but were hoping to retake their lands from the orcs that had routed them in the first place, which made Ursa feel something of a kinship with them, though she'd never admit it. They were very brave.

At any rate their animals would starve with nobody to tend them, a battlefield was no place for chickens, and the Gummis had been happy and humbled to accept the animals.

_Goats,_ Ursa decided as she returned to the practice yard, _Are bottomless pits._

They reminded her of rammas, the way they grazed the tall grass down to short wisps and ate all the leftover peels and skins of the fruits they themselves did not want, the cores of apples and she had even seen one goat chewing on an empty clay plate that probably tasted like food, but wasn't. Gusto didn't have a kiln, but he had clay now and they now all had plates again, even if they were a little more fragile. Gruffi had promised he would build him a new kiln once the planting was over.

But goats could not be ridden and so the Barbics kept looking for rammas with every new patrol of the outer wall. They had certainly laid enough sweet grass trimmings down as bait to lure the rammas in. Ah the smell of food! Could anyone, Gummi or ramma, ignore something so tempting?

Ursa was almost at the edge of the garden when a shrill scream and the sound of breaking glass echoed through her mind, her ears and the air. She immediately pivoted, hearing the sounds of the Barbics in the practice yard dropping everything to respond. It was pretty useful, living in such a close together area, not so much far to go to find trouble.

The cry was coming from the inside the farthest of the greenhouses, and the screams were Gusto's. Since she was closest, she was first to respond, with Gruffi coming along up beside her, huffing and straining to keep up. He'd been working too hard.

"No! No! Get away!"

More breaking glass! The greenhouse door was wide open when they arrived, and to her utter surprise and horror they found Gusto on the ground, bawling like an infant, the statue of the Gardener in a stance of defence over him facing one of the back walls of the greenhouse, which was completely shattered.

The Gardener was still, but Ursa could only guess that it had been the first to respond to Gusto's cry since it could not move and be seen at the same time, it would have had stilled its moving as soon as she had arrived! She shivered and left the greenhouse immediately to start giving orders. Her Barbics were already on the ball, securing the area and searching for obvious threats. At the sign of all clear she breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the greenhouse.

"The glass is completely shattered," Gruffi growled as soon as she returned. "What the heck happened here?"

"I'm sorry! I'm a coward, I'm such a coward! It was just a troggle, but I freaked out completely!"

Gruffi suddenly had a guilty look on his face and helped Gusto to his feet as the others surveyed the damage to the windows.

"Troggle you say?" Ursa asked Gusto. "We didn't find anything when we searched."

The Barbics were still scouting the area outside just in case, and would report their own findings to her soon enough.

"Well I saw a furry white face...behind the glass...with red eyes. It hissed at me, and growled like a troggle. I threw a couple of bricks at it and it ran..."

As soon as Gusto got out his broken explanation of what happened Ursa turned again and left the greenhouse again to parley with her Barbics. Hawk was the first to find something, footprints on the ground behind the greenhouse leading away from the area. Ursa soon joined him and Gritty and surrounded the prints.

"So is Gusto right? Was it troggles?" she asked, knowing nothing about animal tracks. Her one weakness; she was an excellent fighter and warrior, but tracking was beyond her ken. "Sometimes troggles have white fur...I saw a couple when they attacked..."

"If they're from really far to the North, Zummi said…White fur like the snow."

But after they repeated this idea in gestures for Hawk, the youth shook his head, then pointed to himself, and Ursa, and Gritty.

"Gummi bear prints?" Ursa was a wee bit stunned, and thought he might be kidding around with her. "Are you sure?"

Hawk nodded, not needing her to sign her answer to him, but getting her surprise from the look on her face. Good, he needed to practice reading lips.

"Hm, the Glens might have left these before while they were gardening."

"Maybe," Gritty said, and then sighed and tried his own best to tell Hawk what they had said. His gestures weren't as good as Ursa's, but she let him do it. He needed practice too.

Hawk shook his head and signed a bit. The tracks were 'fresh' and 'small'.

"One of them could be playing a prank?" Ursa growled. "Cubbi maybe?"

"No, and Cubbi was practicing with us remember?"

"I'm right here anyways, behind you. You can check my feet against the prints."

Gritty jumped and looked behind him, where Cubbi was standing looking annoyed to be singled out. They did compare the footprints to his own feet, determined that they were slightly smaller than his anyways, and since he had the smallest feet of them all then the tracks couldn't belong to any of the other Gummis. Hawk and the other trackers had already started slowly following the trail, and Ursa trailed along behind them, wondering which Gummi could have the gall to do something like this to Gusto. It had to have been a prank!

But they were all stopped at a brick wall. Ursa looked up.

It was _that _wall. The one that surrounded the house that freaked Gusto out. A wall with no way in, completely enclosed.

"Could it have been...a ghost?" said Cubbi quietly.

The Barbics all gasped and Mokka made a rather superstitious warding gesture they all recognized, to keep evil spirits away. Hawk shook his head sensibly and mimicked climbing.

"Of course, this person must have been climbing in and out of the garden to steal our food," Ursa turned to look at Hawk directly, not bothering with gestures. His lip reading was never going to improve if he didn't try. "A Gummi bear though, are you sure Hawk?"

The youth nodded firmly. The tracks were quite Gummi in origin.

"We'd better check this out then…" she said, and then paused. "Wait, I'd like Gusto to come with us over the wall. His visions would help prevent us from falling into a trap."

"You want to bring that coward!" Gritty said, clasping his spear.

"Enough," she said hotly. "He's an Oracle and a fighter and he's coming."

"I just think he'd be a liability, that we'd have to protect him the whole time. Even that statue leapt up to help him."

"Did anybody see the statue move, by the by?" Joxer asked, knowing the response almost immediately.

Cubbi shrugged, and none of the Barbics had. Ursa wondered if one of the other Glens had.

"Back to the greenhouse. We'll get everyone here to check their prints against the tracks. Even Thornberry, though he sleeps most days. Somebody made those prints, and then when we confirm that this Gummi bear was not one of us, we go over the wall. With Gusto. Clear?"

The Barbics all nodded. Now she only hoped she could convince the poor artist of his usefulness to their cause.

* * *

><p>"Absolutely not!"<p>

"You're one of the best climbers here…" Gruffi said.

Gusto turned to the soft voice and frowned. Gruffi had been quietly contemplating the broken glass on the floor of the greenhouse, ignoring Ursa's immediate decision that he, Gusto, should help them track down that thing that he had seen! He didn't believe for one moment it was a Gummi Bear! But...Hawk's skills as a tracker were without peer.

"Its not exactly a mountain!"

"And your skills as an Oracle should keep anybody from getting into trouble!" Ursa continued hotly.

"That whole building is trouble and I want no part of it!"

"All the more reason to find out what's inside Gusto," Zummi said sensibly, scratching his nose. "Why, you know what I think you might find there?"

Gusto turned to glare at Zummi. They were all against him!

"Gusto, come here a moment…"

Gusto shuddered a little as he stepped over bits of broken glass, and walked over to Gruffi, who alarmed them all by hugging him.

"I know how frightened you are. You saw what you thought was a troggle, after troggles nearly killed you. When Cubbi befriended and actually brought home a _wolf _pup I thought I was going to die! We all have our fears...fears other people can't understand. I do. But I think this is important, and you need to see it for yourself if you are going to shake off the troggle fear. After I got used to Loopy I was less afraid of wolves. I understood them. Do you understand?"

It was a good thing Cubbi wasn't there to hear this, that he and Sunni were back out in the yard waiting for the adults to finish their parley. Gruffi had yet to tell his two children how his mother had died; defending their lives from a pack of wolves. Cubbi's wolf adoption must have been horrific for Gruffi. Gusto's near death to similar creatures had spooked Gruffi so badly that he'd kept it inside, and only revealed all of this about his wife to Gusto in the darkness of the night, between the sheets, as they rested together in one another's arms. And he had wept.

"Gusto, you found this place, when it was under our noses this whole time," Zummi said, interrupting the awkwardly tender moment. "It may be that your Oracle skills are the only way the Garbics will be able to find that Bummi Bear. Er, the Barbics will be able to find that Gummi Bear. If it is indeed a Gummi Bear," he turned to look at Ursa again.

"The tracks and Cubbi's feet were identical in all but size. These tracks are smaller."

"A troggle cub then!" Gusto said desperately, feeling very stupid.

"A cub maybe, but troggles and wolves run on four very hand-like paws. These tracks are not a four limbed gait, or anything like hands," Joxer spoke up next to Hawk, who looked stricken that his skills were being questioned at all.

Gusto suddenly felt really guilty.

"All right, all right, I'll go help you find this _Gummi Bear_," he grumbled. "But I can tell you right now, this is just going to be a disaster!"

"Maybe you can all do us a favor," Ursa said, as he followed her out of the greenhouse. "And check for trap doors in the wall before we go to all the trouble of climbing it! That way we can avoid any disasters in the first place!"

She had...a point. A fall from such a high wall could prove very, very fatal.

* * *

><p>Ursa was vexed...for the umpteenth time that day! There were no secret trap doors...on the outside.<p>

"You can't trigger it from here," Gusto said, pointing at almost the exact place the Gummi intruder must have climbed over the wall, maybe just a little beside it. "You can from the other side though, so you don't need me to climb over with you. It's not magic, just physical. You could try to force it open from this side, probably but...It would take too long."

Gusto had been extremely uncomfortable with the idea of climbing the wall more than anything. But Ursa felt triumphant that her instincts about his Oracle abilities was right. At least there was a door!

"Does explain how the intruder was able to steal things without our noticing," Gritty said suddenly. "How could it just take things and disappear? A secret door in an out of the garden...there's probably more of them we don't know about!"

"I don't think so Gritty," Gusto said, looking again at the ground. "Remember, this door can only be opened from the inside. And this grass is very tall. It hasn't been opened and closed recently, or the grass would have been broken back. Something else was keeping us from following the thief back here. Probably magic of some kind."

Ursa was amazed at his swift assessment. Gusto had some tracking skills of his own that were coming to the fore now, probably ones he hadn't used in a while, and seemed awkward and uncomfortable to be using again. Hawk had, himself, shown Gusto the tracks, next to Gusto's own footprints he'd made the older bear print into the ground. There was no argument from Gusto about their Gummi quarry after that. But Gritty still thought he was being a coward.

_He's coming with us anyways, _Ursa decided. _He can climb well, Gruffi had said. I want to see how well._

As the best climbers amongst the Barbics she and Buddi were always competing to see who could get to the top of something first. Hawk, with his eagle eyes and good aim would be able to defend them from the top of the wall with arrows if they did have trouble on the other side. That made three for their team. And Gusto would be four.

"Alright. Gritty, Rusty, take teams of four around to the other sides and try to get over if you can. We want to surround the person on the inside so they can't escape. Cubbi and Sir Thornberry can guard the trick door to make sure nobody comes out that way."

"Yes Ma'am," Gritty said and took his team to the north side on the front of the house. Rusty took the east route.

The wall was more of a circle than a square, with no corners, but they would approach it as if it had four walls, and so Ursa sent a fourth team of waiting Barbics to the west, though there was a street and barrier wall there, leaving her alone with her own small team.

"All right you three, lets get going," Ursa said, and aimed her arrow at the top of the wall.

It bounced off with a clatter and fell almost onto her head.

"Here, let me and Hawk do the aiming…" Gusto said in amusement, and took her bow from her. "It may be protected with magic anyways…But I don't want to crawl up that thing without a rope so I'll try first."

Ursa felt her fury smoulder. Gusto had joined their last few hunts for food willingly, and he and Hawk had been the only ones able to catch anything. Her own archery skills were deplorable, and though he never said it outright, she could feel the implications of the command.

'_You were so hard on me to learn how to fight with a bow and arrow and you can't aim to save yourself! Hypocrite!'_

That was the unvoiced sentence she could see clearly in his eyes. And she probably deserved it too. But still, she had to admit, he was good. Both he and Hawk made their marks easily on the wall and Hawk deferred his rope to her so that she and Gusto could go up first, with Buddi trying and failing twice to get his own mark before finally catching it. Hawk was already scrambling up Ursa's line after her, forgoing a fourth line; he was a bad climber due to his weak lungs and the better climber always took point when on the line. But once they were on the wall he would need to be there right beside her to aim his arrows at enemies unseen so he was trying his very best to keep up with her. His poor breathing, though, was harried and loud. She took pity on them and kept a slow pace so he wouldn't have to go too fast.

Gusto, however, was surprising her. He was indeed, as Gruffi had said, one of the best climbers. He was so sure footed on the wall that he almost looked bored by the effort.

It wasn't an easy climb, however, and yet she seemed to be struggling while he was quite at ease. The wall _seemed_ easy enough, with a lot of places to grab a handhold...but it was still tricky. Some of the bricks she stepped upon were loose and fell out. Others fell down from above as if loosened by some unseen force. And the wall seemed to lean out towards them more and more as they climbed...

_Magic! He probably sees the traps before he approaches them. I can't!_

"Gusto, magic…" she covered her head just in time to prevent a loose brick from landing on her skull. Hawk skittered sideways to avoid it.

"I noticed. But nothing is happening to me. I guess I should lead…"

He increased his climbing pace so that he was above her, ready to warn her about anything too dangerous. Buddi next to her made a disgruntled sound...something like 'show off'.

_Its only showing off it he's doing it on purpose. But right now…_She had seen a sort of steely blue glint in his eyes, his look was one of concentration, as if he had a canvas in front of him and a problematic paintbrush that wasn't doing what he wanted it to. _Right now he's concentrating on the wall more than on us..._

Whatever magic was at work here, it seemed like it really disliked Ursa. It wasn't a large wall. About the same height as the outer city walls. But it seemed to take forever to climb it. It felt like it was growing, twisting, changing shape with every inch she gained...

_Sometimes, I really hate magic!_

She was shocked when she suddenly felt something sharp poke her foot.

"What the…?"

"Careful, watch your feet!"

Gusto was at her side, and she realized he had stopped here to keep her from going further, but she had been too distracted to notice him. His eyes had a glassy appearance as he observed the wall. Everyone in the city now recognized that look; he was doing his Oracle thing. She waited for him to finish his search, stopping Hawk and Buddi in their climb.

The wall was covered in tiny holes and something sharp had poked her toes from one of those holes. Gusto carefully covered one of the holes with his foot.

"Ursa, are you all right?" Buddi said as he joined them.

"I'm fine, not even bleeding, but what the Gum was that…?"

Gusto suddenly jerked his foot away from the wall and a tiny sharp spike and head poked out of the hole he had purposely been keeping one of his feet over, and he snatched the spike and its owner from its hole faster than she could see.

A horrifically cute fluttering and squeaking thing is what came out with the spike and its squeaks were soon by a chorus from the other holes.

"Ha ha, its just a brick-picker," Gusto laughed as the critter flustered about in his grasp.

"A what?" Ursa had to keep her body firmly away from the holes, as more sharp spiked heads were poking out of the walls to observe the kerfuffle.

"Birds," Gusto said, releasing the one in his hand so it could fly back to its hole in an angry huff. "They're harmless, but their beak is pretty sharp, so be careful."

"Looks like this wall is home to an entire flock…" Buddi said, avoiding the tiny sharp colorful creatures, and looking down to make sure Hawk knew what was going on.

Fortunately he was far behind enough that he had seen Gusto pull out the bird and knew what was going on before his feet ever got near the holes. Ursa was a little more concerned about her footing than her feet, as the wall here was not very sturdy. The brick-pickers had worn this wall down when making their nests and some of the bricks were loose. Not loose enough for a tiny bird to dislodge, but a big Gummi Bear easily could.

She forgave herself for a moment of weakness as she tiptoed up the wall, because she didn't want to ruin the little birds' homes, or hurt any of them by accident!

_I'm becoming soft...should not have brought that damned artist on the Barbic hunts, despite his skills. His softness is wearing off on me._

The top of the wall could not come any sooner and she hadn't known she was there until after she grasped it, pulled herself up and straddled it, exhausted. Gusto was already there, and looking around below him with an annoyed look. Buddi finally reached the top next, and Ursa gave him a triumphant grin. Gusto may have been first up, but Ursa had bested Buddi, once again. He would double his efforts next time they climbed. She knew this was one of his better motivations, finding ways to prove himself to her, even though she was always proud of him and his climbing skills. It was a cheap way to make him practice harder, but he had a tendency to slack off of his training when she wasn't looking.

Something poked her ankle suddenly, startling her, and she looked down, only to see that it was Hawk, wanting her to move sideways and let him gain the top.

"All right," Ursa said as she shuffled along, and finally took a moment to survey the area that Gusto was now studying as deeply as Zummi studied a printed page.

No wonder he had been so annoyed. This was nothing more than a house. Thats all that it was. A tall skinny house like the one Gusto had once lived in before, but this one had a more sturdy, regal look to it. It was extremely tall and surrounded by a brick courtyard, and topped with two chimneys, one of them very tall and wide, far in excess of any of the fanciest fireplaces she could picture. Gusto's house had also boasted two chimneys, though his had been smudged black with soot, which meant that the inside of this house probably had a workshop with either a kiln or a forge. The walls of the house were white, unbroken and smooth with dark brown wooden lintels and trim and the roof was of dark red fired clay slats; no fire had been lit inside the place in years as there wasn't a spot of chimney soot in sight. The dusty glass windows on all sides were too small and too dirty for them to see inside from their wall perch and there were none that she could see around the ground level.

This was standard in a Great Gummi workshop, as the Greats didn't like anybody peeking into their workspaces while they were working. Some crafters had secrets they even kept from other Gummi Bears, Gruffi had told her. Secrets they passed down in their families, like the Glen's tradition of making Gummi Berry juice.

Down below she could see a yard that was weedy and overgrown, and there was a stone stairwell going down underground to the hidden wall door. Large trees surrounded the house, one of which nearly reached the top of the wall, it was that high. There was also a courtyard of brick stones and a drive and carriage house that she could just see through the trees. This was a fancy place, if it had a carriage house of its own. And its own stables, she could now see there was another building attached to the carriage house. Perhaps the carriage and stables were for delivery of whatever goods were constructed here.

"All right then, lets go down.."

This time Buddi went first, and down was a lot faster than up, and a lot safer. This side of the wall was shorter than the other. The ground was raised up on the inside, up to the half height of the wall. And no magic slowed them down in their descent.

_I guess we passed whatever test was keeping us from getting here._

Buddi was waiting for her as her foot touched down, and he gave her the all clear before he started scouting around in the trees. Hawk immediately went to the secret wall stairwell to open the door for the others.

"Huh," Gusto reached the ground last, and rubbed his cheek. "Go on ahead of me Ursa, I want to sit here for a second…"

Ursa looked at him for a moment, and noted the glassy look suddenly forming in his eyes.

"Well don't get yourself killed in the middle of some vision!" she snarled, finally letting her frustration out on someone, and she started down into the yard. "You were the one who didn't want to come here because you said it was dangerous!"

But she was too late. He was already distracted and drifting, and no response was forthcoming for her tirade.

_Figures. Maybe Gritty is right. How can you rely on somebody who blanks out at random like that?_

Nobody was waiting for Hawk on the other side of the wall as it turned out. Thornberry and Cubbi were gone.

"Where did they go?" Ursa said, and turned to look at Hawk, who could only shrug. Buddi had not yet returned from scouting. "No Glens either. Well, they can wait for our report at supper if they don't want to come!"

There was nothing for it but to keep exploring. Ursa followed her instincts and started looking for Buddi, and found him next to a tall apple tree, completely stripped of apples. The rotting remains of cores were on the ground. And she could smell urine..._Gummi urine._

_At least my nose is good for tracking..._she thought with some dismay as she covered it with her hand. _Yuck, this fellow has no manners if he's peeing on trees like a troggle! Gusto was right about that at least!_

Hawk eventually rejoined them, and also crinkled his nose at the urine smell. No sign yet of Gritty or the others from the other sides, so they were probably struggling with the magic as well.

"There's two more walls, separating the front of the house from the back," Buddi said. "One's a retaining wall and the other has a metal grate and drainage ditch, and its short enough for us to get over. We can reach the front of the house through there…"

They came around to the front of the house, and Ursa noted a rather large front yard and a drive that lead to the tall dark wall. This house wasn't just surrounded by the wall, it was being blocked off by it on purpose! But why?

"Ursa! Help me with this door!"

The front of this tower house boasted two beautiful wood oak doors, that Buddi was trying pointlessly to open because they were both clearly locked tight. It wouldn't be easy to break into the front of the house, the doors were heavy and thick.

"What about the back door? Can we get in there?" Ursa said.

She was alarmed to discover that the back door had no handle. No way to open it from the outside. It was a large, thick steel door with steel lintels embedded deep in the brick wall. It was an overkill door meant for keeping people out, and could only be opened by somebody on the inside. It stuck out like a sore thumb, and she couldn't imagine what was hiding inside.

There were no ground level windows. And the higher level windows were too small for anyone to get in. This house was definitely meant to prevent people from seeing, or getting to, what was inside. The front doors would have been protected by Gummi Knights or guards of some sort. The carriage house was unattached from the rest of the building and inside that they found an actually carriage of green and red painted wood and fancy golden embellishments. It was as fancy as any carriage that the richest nobles of Dunwyn drove to parties and balls. Yet this was a craft house! Had somebody rich had lived here, or had there been crafters here? Or both? Would rich Gummis still enjoy crafting and smithing?

Ursa and the others returned to the back wall and found that Gritty and the others had finally arrived. None of them had been able to get over the wall and had waited for Hawk to let them in.

"Did Gusto leave?" Ursa said in annoyance.

"He said he'd come back, he had to find a bathroom or something…"

Ursa growled.

"I'll wait here for Gusto and we'll see if there's some sort of magic to opening the backdoor to the house. For now you keep scouring the area, report anything unusual you find. Hopefully we haven't already lost our quarry."

But Hawk was now pulling on her shirt and pointing backwards, and she turned to see what he was pointing at.

The tall tall tree, taller than the others, the one that was almost as high as the wall. And inside the tree...something white.

"Ah, I see Hawk, I see what you mean...You and Buddi are with me," she gestured for him to follow her.

Ursa started walked slowly in the direction of the tree...casually, as if she were looking around on the ground for apples, with the other two Barbics taking different, less obvious routes, to watch her.

Something hit her as she approached the tree, and she felt a wetness on her head. Alarmed that she might have been injured, she touched her skull with her hand, but there was no blood. She sniffed her hand.

_Apple juice. This smells like apple juice! The bugger threw an apple core at me!_

She glances sideways up into the tree, and her quarry was already moving to another branch, quickly, like a cat. She reached the trunk and looked up directly.

The tree branches were festooned with things, stolen things mostly; their clothes, some linens Grammi had been wondering about, some hats, and socks, and of course the stolen food in bags and baskets. Ropes with rags on them, like little colorful flags, were hung here and there for climbing in and out of the tree. But she sensed this home was a new one to its resident, the path around it wasn't nearly well worn enough to have been used for long. Maybe as long as…

_As long as the troggle invasion perhaps?_

As if reading her thoughts, her quarry threw another thing at her and started hissing the way a troggle would.

"My tree! My tree!"

Ursa managed to avoid another apple core thrown at her, and got a good look at her quarry.

All white fur, white as a ghost, and eyes red...yet this fellow was definitely a Gummi Bear. And not just any bear...

_He's a cub! Gusto was right about that too! Everything but the fact that he isn't actually a troggle, just a bit troggle like!_

Hawk's ego would not be bruised though, the tracks had been Gummi tracks.

"Its alright you two, he's just a kid! And he is a Gummi Bear, Hawk was right."

This cub wasn't interested in being a Gummi Bear. He threw another object at her, and she could see he was perfectly naked. The stolen clothes were being used to build the nest he was making in the higher branches of the trees. Troggles lived in caves. But this bear was acting like a bird!

This wasn't so unusual though, Gummis were naturally more comfortable around trees and would be more comfortable in the branches of a tree than inside a dark cave. The Great Gummis had built their massive warrens under and inside large trees. Their ancestors before that had lived inside the hollows of trees, in underground tunnels they built, with the tree and branches a natural cover and defence for potential invaders, and the roots of the tree as traps to tangle them in. This tree wasn't big enough for a warren. And it was barely able to grow inside the crowded confines of the yard. But its height was ideal for a tree house.

_This kid may act like a troggle,_ another bit of fruit, this time a hard, painful peach stone, hit her and she growled. _But he is still as smart as Gummi Bear all right, and has the instincts of one if he's living in a tree. And I'm going to spank him good when I get to him!_

It was an empty threat, she knew. Because her mind had already formulated the premise that he had been raised by troggles and it wasn't his fault he acted this way. She took to the branches very quickly, no Barbic was her peer at climbing trees either, except perhaps her own son when he was in good form, and she had no trouble reaching the top branches.

"Now you just stop throwing things and come down here right now. I'm not here to take your tree. Come on I just want to talk."

"No talk! No talk! My tree! My tree!"

Ursa ducked again as he dumped an entire basket of apple cores on her head. This time, the spanking threat was no longer just an empty threat.

"Alright, thats it, you are in a load of trouble kid!"

She climbed up the last several branches, feeling as if she was going to be picking leaves out of her shirt for days, and felt triumphant when her hands finally grasped a furry arm and she was throwing the snarling fighting cub face first over her shoulder.

It was no contest really, but she gave his bottom end a hefty smack when he started biting her.

"I said stop! And behave yourself or else!"

He hissed and ignored her warning, squirming and kicking and biting as she carried him down the tree, more slowly than she had climbed up the wall. He smelled terrible, he was grimy and his fur was caked with mud and slime, she didn't want to know what the slime was but probably he hadn't had anywhere to bath, and probably hadn't wanted to anyways. Now he was fighting her with a great deal of frustration and she couldn't do anything to him while she was climbing down. But once her foot hit ground again...

Gusto was waiting there for her with the other Glens, finally having arrived, and they all seemed quite amused when she started whaling on the kid's bottom end. The cub stopped hissing and biting and eventually started to cry.

"Stop stop stop!"

"Are you going to stop biting?"

"Yes!"

"And kicking!"

"Yes! Yes!"

Ursa did stop the punishment, and turned to look the cub in the eyes.

The troggle was gone. Now he was a desperately scared and chastened little boy, as young as Cubbi had been when she'd first met the Glens, maybe around six years old, or younger. She suddenly felt a swelling of pity in her heart for the horrible little wretch and she pulled him into a tight hug.

"Now, you behave yourself," she said a little more softly, but still sternly. "Gummi Bears don't act like troggles."

"Gummi...Bears…?" he asked, and rubbed the tears from his eyes.

"That is what you are," said Zummi, and he pointed around. "What we are. Gummi Bears. My name is Zummi."

"And I'm Ursa…"

Each Gummi bear introduced themselves in turn. As the Barbics returned from their scouting, the cub looked at each one in turn, completely surrounded.

"What's _your_ name?" Zummi asked him.

Stricken he turned to looked at Ursa.

"Name…" said the boy. "Name. My name."

"Yes, your name?" Ursa urged. Maybe he hadn't understood them.

Something must have come back into his memory, as the tears stilled and he looked horrified.

"Sammi be good! Sammi eat your vegetables. Sammi is ugly and going away! Sammi is bad!"

He started bawling again and Ursa felt bad for spanking him.

"No no no, Sammi," Ursa pulled him into her arms to hug him, smell be damned. "No, Sammi is good. And he's not going away. Its alright Sammi, we're going to take care of you. I promise."

* * *

><p>Gusto wandered around the strange backyard as if in a dream. He was a bit flabberghasted really. He could still feel a terrible threatening presence here, but it wasn't the boy, that was for sure.<p>

And he felt silly for having been afraid of him. Now he could see him for what he was, and the more Ursa and the others had been able to get out of the lad, the angrier they had all become.

He was an albino. Zummi had explained that this was the word for somebody with his white fur and red eyes. But other than his unusual color he was still a Gummi Bear. But some Gummis were superstitious and thought albinos brought bad luck and misfortune, others thought they were witches! And Sammi was no exception, his family had abandoned him almost a year ago. When the troggles found him they had just considered him one of their own cubs and raised him. Probably because some Northern troggles were white furred like young Sammi was.

Little Sammi had entered the city when the troggle invasion had occurred, had watched the Glen Gummis and the Barbics for awhile, and had followed them into this garden after they'd found it, climbing over the wall in the house that he knew the other Gummis would not want to go into. He had not waited for the troggles to return, he had known he'd been abandoned, and had expected it. Troggles didn't covet their young as much as Gummis did and troggle cubs were often left behind after a certain age, in order to start a new pack. The ones that survived into adulthood would raise even stronger offspring.

_Poor Sammi_, Gusto thought, as he finally found a rusted metal bench to sit on. _Abandoned by his own kin._

The other Gummis were all in the yard now, trying to find a way into the house, but the solid steel back door was giving Gruffi a serious headache and they didn't want to damage the beautiful front door with axes unless they had to. It was rather beautifully carved, and fairly thick so even using axes would take a long time. Gusto was sitting in contemplation here for awhile when Gruffi finally stomped over to him pointedly.

"Well I give up, I'll have to use the axe it seems. Its such as shame cause...oh Great Gummis! When did _he_ get here?"

Gusto jerked up, and saw suddenly that the statue of the Gardener had joined him while he was in a daze, standing only half a foot behind him to the left, and looking up at the house.

His face was filled with a terrible despair and guilt. Gusto anxiously touched the statue and…

_...he could feel the despair, in waves, in horrible waves of guilt and shame…_

"_My fault, its all my fault! At least it will soon be over! I failed you! I always failed you!"_

Gusto pulled his hand back and turned to look at Gruffi in horror.

"Its...not a statue! It..he, he's alive! He can think and feel!"

"Are you sure? Oh of course you are, I'll get Zummi!"

Gusto turned to put a hand on the stone shoulder again.

"It's alright…" he told the statue. "It's going to be alright…"

But this time there was only silence.


	6. Mad Gum Of The Mountains

"We have two major problems here…" Gruffi said that night at dinner, as the pounding fury to a summer storm made its fierce and terrible rage known upon the roof.

"Only two?" said Grammi, who was looking like she wanted to kill something, looking over her shoulder at the window occasionally as lightning flashed. "I hope Ursa knows what she's doing, adopting that poor cub and dragging him off to be a Barbic. He doesn't need more harshness in his life!"

"But its what he's used to," Gusto said, and then looked down at his bowl of stew, face a mask. Only his eyes gave away his anxiety about the rain that he himself had promised would come. "Too much kindness now might just drive him away…"

It was more rain that Gruffi had ever seen at one time in his life. As if the rain was making up for an entire summer without a drop. If the city flooded, they would be in serious trouble. This house was technically below ground. If the city flooded, they'd have worse problems to worry about than one Gummi bear.

"Besides, the Barbics aren't troggles...although sometimes Ursa…" Gruffi let that thought trail off with a chuckle.

Grammi and Ursa had started fighting over the boy as soon as they'd left the yard with him, Grammi struggling to give the kid a bath while Ursa had already decided on a room for the boy...in Barbic Territory. Grammi had fed the boy while Ursa chattered on about how he would be a great warrior someday!

"Well, she does seem to be very protective of him," Grammi said, still bruising over losing the initial fight; Sammi had wanted to go with Ursa, the idea of learning how to fight had appealed to him more than Grammi's smothering had. "I doubt she's going to let anymore harm come to him. But still..."

_Both Ursa and Grammi clearly have their mother instincts on full power_, Gruffi decided. _Grammi lost this battle, but I wonder who will win the war..._

"Anyways, as I was saying, besides little Sammi, we have two problems. The house next door to us is still sealed, and we have no way of getting in without using an axe, and it'll probably take hours of trying to break it down. We'd need an ogre sized axe…"

A sudden loud crash and flash caused them all to jump and the thunder soon followed. Gruffi held for a moment, wondering if the lightning had struck close by, then relaxing a little as Sunni came in from the rain, soaked, wrapped in her rain slicker and carrying bottles of some freshly harvested goat's milk. Clearly that crash had been her slamming the door in anger. She looked like death warmed over and Grammi got up to help her unwrap and then bundle her into a blanket that Zummi had brought from the sitting room across the kitchen. Tummi took the milk bottles from her to take down to the root cellar. Clearly he had wanted to leave.

"Ursa said if the wall wasn't there we could try that battering ram," Cubbi commented.

"Yes. Well, then we'd have to break down the wall first. For the time being, axes it is. Just to break into that house..."

"Such a shame about that door. It really is a beautiful house. As beautiful as this one..." Grammi sighed and looked around the house. Sunni had already vacated the rather expansive kitchen to go dry off upstairs.

"Onto the next problem; the Gardener, who seems to not want us to get in. At least, thats what Gusto tells us..."

Gusto still looked stricken by what had happened. The Gardener was unable, or unwilling, to give him any more information than he had and so Gruffi turned to look at Zummi, hoping maybe that Zummi would confirm or dispel the idea that Gusto had been reading a statue's thoughts.

"Well, Gusto, you say you could sense his thoughts when you touched him," said Zummi excitedly. "You may have thus achieved the lecond sevel of the Oracle gifts...I mean, the second level of Oracle gifts. You can sense other's thoughts, which is why Gummis have always felt a little suspicious and untrusting of Oracles. I mean, who would want somebody strange to know their innermost secrets?"

"But only when I touch others right?" Gusto said, tentatively putting a hand on Cubbi's next to him.

Gruffi knew Cubbi's thoughts were not the most pleasant towards Gusto right now, and that this was probably not a good idea, but maybe the artist did not know how he felt and wanted to find out for himself.

"Get off," Cubbi said, and pushed the hand away pointedly. Gusto pulled his arm back as if stung.

Gruffi sighed. Mokka had announced that he wanted Gusto to take the Barbic test of Bearhood. Gusto was clanless and he had great fighting skills, why not join the Barbics? Apparently something had impressed Ursa for she had agreed.

Yet the new rule with Barbics was that only one person could test each year, to prevent competition from happening the way it had for Buddi and Cavin. Which would mean Cubbi couldn't take the test if Gusto did. The issue was all up in the air since Ursa had been distracted by having Sammi suddenly run off on his own and they had found him hours later in the food stores, sleeping in a basket of apple cores. What a hungry kid! He didn't just act like a troggle, he ate like one too!

"Well then," said Zummi, and Cubbi turned and crossed his arms with a scowl. "Since statues, even magical statues, do not have thoughts, its more than likely that this Gardener is a Gummi Bear, turned to stone."

Gusto nodded in alarm and the other Gummi's all looked horrified. Gruffi took control of the conversation immediately. A thundercrack underscored his next words.

"Alright, so he's a Gummi Bear, or at least we think he is. Who turned him to stone, and why?"

"Well, it may have been the Great Gummis themselves," Zummi admitted, with a blush. "They could come up with very creative, non-violent forms of punishments for offenders, such as the punishment the Great Gummis gave Zorlock, or how they trapped the Spinster in her own Kingdom to keep her from being a danger to them. They were never violent punishments, but always fair...and usually final. Meaning only Gummi Bears could reverse whatever magic or technology they used to trap the offender."

Gruffi wondered how Zummi had come to the conclusion the Gardener was being punished in some form.

"Maybe…" Gusto shrugged, now looking out the window as the rain spilled in heavy rivulets down the glass. "I do get the feeling that he's supposed to be guarding that house, that he's failed before, and now he feels as if he's failed again. This could be some sort of punishment for failure. Could he be trying to keep us away from finding out what he failed to do? Trying to hide his crime?"

"You Gusto," said Zummi pointedly. "The Gardener has been trying to keep _you_ away. Its you who has had the bad feeling about the house. And when Sammi attacked you, the Gardener wasn't trying to protect you, not from a child, and he certainly didn't try to keep Sammi away from the house. He was trying to stop you from going after him!"

"Me…" Gusto said, slowly rising.

"And whenever the Gardener is around, you fall into a sort of stupor," Cubbi said. "Gritty said you were doing your Oracle thing…"

"And an Oracle would certainly be able to find whatever has been hiding in that house…I wonder if just being near the Gardener is enough to block me from being able to sense what's going on around me. To keep me from finding what its guarding..."

"Which suggests the Gardener is capable of magic," Zummi said thoughtfully. "Whatver he's guarding over must be very important…"

"Whatever he's been _forced _to keep guard over," Gruffi surmised. "I doubt he ever wanted this job. But I don't know if the Greats would want to keep Gummi Bears from finding their secrets. Do you? So what could the Gardener be hiding?"

Gusto looked over at Zummi, whose face was twisted for a moment in rage.

"King Severus," Gusto said in a breath.

A momentary pause, when even the rain and the thunder dared not break the silence.

"We still haven't found his body. And the humans that killed the King had a wizard!"

"A wizard that could have turned a Gummi Bear to stone," Gusto decided. "Bear's fur! The King wanted me to find his body, me _the Oracle!_ And I haven't even been looking! And here it is, probably right under my nose! And that poor Gardener being forced to prevent anyone from finding it. I must have been a real challenge for him!"

Zummi nodded, and Grammi gave them all a cup of tea.

"Tomorrow then?" Zummi decided, as rain was starting to pool under the doorway. "Those Barbics are now watching the Gardener like a hawk, and he can't move while we're watching. You should be able to find a way into the house while he's stuck in one place."

"More than likely," Gruffi said, hastily grabbing a towel from the kitchen counter to stuff under the door. "And now that I've fixed that hidden door, we don't need to climb over the wall to get in again."

Gusto seemed amused by this information, and Gruffi knew it was because Ursa, Buddi and Hawk had cornered Gruffi and forced him to find a way to keep them from having to climb that awful wall ever again! The water didn't leak any further than the doormat and Gruffi sighed in relief when it actually began to retreat. No floods tonight, but it was still a close call.

"Well, one thing is for sure," Zummi said, crossing his arms. "If we do open up that house, and reveal what is inside, we may doom the Gardener to being a statue forever. Failure is failure, when it comes to these sorts of punishments. I will have to see if I can find a way to turn him back to a Gummi Bear…But Gruffi, you know how difficult that can be."

Gruffi turned to look at Gusto feeling embarrassed by the memory of trying to find some way to turn a sculpture into a Gummi Bear, feeling an upwelling of sympathy for his lover. Gusto had become rather fond of the Gardener, and the idea that they had to doom him in order to complete their task well…

It wasn't any wonder that once they were alone together in their warm bedroom, Gusto fell into his arms and wept like a child.

* * *

><p>Gusto approached the wall with a feeling in his bones that he didn't like that had nothing to do with the Gardener, magic, or that creepy house.<p>

_I need to figure this out today, before it comes back to bite me on the tail!_

The Barbics were on the other side of the wall waiting for him with Zummi. The rest of the Glens were doing the usual chores; Cubbi and Sunni were practicing their archery alone, but would be doing the dusting and mopping later. Tummi was patiently working in the garden, and Grammi had taken this opportunity to start the loads and loads of laundry that had piled up since the drought had begun, the rain filling the reservoir and cistern fuller than either had been all year. Thornberry was once again sleeping.

_He's starting to act his age, _Gusto thought sadly. _A man can't run around fighting troggles forever._

Gruffi was here with Gusto by the wall, both of them had been late to do their usual chores, because they had stayed at the Glenhouse's luxuriously large kitchen to do the dishes for Grammi while she was outside setting up her washtubs. This was their apology for all the extra laundry Grammi would have to try to get done before Sunni or Cubbi could see the rather interesting...stains...

Gusto had been feeling apprehensive since they'd arrived at the wall afterward, and he wasn't sure why he felt this way. It wasn't the strange ominous feeling from before, that had been the Gardener's doing. What was bothering him so badly about this wall now?

"I'm going to climb the wall," he finally said out loud, ignoring the obvious fact that the secret passage was wide open and waiting for him.

"Gusto don't be ridiculous!" Gruffi complained. "Why would you climb the wall again when there's a perfectly good door?"

"There's something about this wall, something I tried to figure out yesterday while Ursa and the others were exploring around inside. Something that I think I can only figure out while still at the top…"

"Hey!" a sudden shout. "The Gardener moved again!"

Ursa was stomping over to them from the doorway, from the other side of the wall, where the other Barbics were now keeping watch on the Gardener as a mass. He seemed to have sensed their intent somehow as he had fled when Harvi Barbic had fallen asleep during his night watch and was now personally guarding the front door of the house, a look of panic on his face. He had abandoned his garden hoe for a spear. He was serious this time. Deadly serious.

"You didn't just leave him there like that?" Gruffi said after she explained all this. "We don't want to accidentally injure him as we axe down that door!"

"Of course not!" Ursa growled. "Gritty picked him up like a doll and moved him. Very light for a statue. But Gritty said the statue must have been crying all night, because the face was damp. I told him he was an idiot because it had rained that night, and he pointed out that the statue had been under cover of the roof."

"Poor fellow…" Gusto sighed.

"Poor fellow my tail! I don't like the fact that he's armed now. Are we really sure we want to do this? It could be that he's trying to protect us!"

Gusto felt himself wincing, even as he nodded, then touched the wall with his body, practically hugging its surface. Ursa turned to look at Gruffi pointedly.

"What in the name of the Ancient Gummis is he doing?"

"He wants to climb the wall again," Gruffi chuckled. "And from the looks of it, without any rope."

Gusto was startled when Ursa suddenly grabbed him off the wall.

"Are you insane?" she hissed. "Its...oh hell! What does it matter anymore what you do? You're a law unto yourself! Terrified of small cubs one day but having absolutely no natural fear of falling the next…"

Gusto decided to respond by returning to the wall and grasping it with his hands and then his feet. Memories of several such climbs filled his waking mind and he could almost imagine the startled look on Ursa's face when he quickly scrambled up the wall as if gravity wasn't a factor. Crawling the wall was nothing new, this was simply a different type of wall climbing, depending more on sturdy hand holds then trying to find stable footing. If you picked strong hand holds then they became holds for the feet as you climbed.

But he knew he was using muscles and reflexes that he hadn't in many years and slowed himself down long enough to avoid the nests of the brick-pickers. This morning they were all abuzz, flying from one hole to the other, then from their holes to the ground and back. The flock was feeding, and probably feeding their young. Gusto could just hear the demanding little peeps of the little ones as he carefully avoided this part of the wall altogether, climbing around it. He could sense that the little birds were actually bringing back bugs for today's meal.

_Another mystery solved, I guess. Can't have a garden without animals, any more than you can have a garden without water. And bugs would quickly destroy a garden without animals to eat them. The birds probably have been keeping this garden pest free for many generations!_

Gusto made the top with little effort; his muscle memory kicked in and he perched on top of the wall as if it wasn't a neck breaking height behind him, squatting like a bird perched on a branch. Down below he could see the twin forms of Ursa and Gruffi, barely visible from here, and he watched as they moved through the secret door to the other side.

_I'll be hearing foul language for this stunt later, but I needed to see if I could. I've been itching to see if I could, since yesterday. Since we reached the other side. Could I climb without a rope? Could I go back to the way I was before the Island?_

Apparently so. He didn't climb down the side, but instead got up and walked along the top. It was perfectly flat on top, his balance was perfect, but he had no idea what he was looking for and so decided to cut down on the insane theatrics and walk slowly. If anything was going to happen he would see it.

_Who knew a Gum could change so much in so little time, the way I did? The way I _have _been since the visions began?_

It wasn't so little a change, if he was honest with himself. It was simply going back to the way he was. His family had taught him well; archery, climbing, tracking, hunting, things he had needed to survive. Not things that he enjoyed, but rather did because he was supposed to. Isolation had been the only thing that had given him any joy and peace. At least until he'd found his island and his artistic skills had blossomed.

But other things had drawn him away from his family. Druids for one, who he travelled with as soon as he found them. Not wanting to compete with his brothers was another, they were extremely competitive, and he had needed to find himself, to be accountable to no one. Isolation was his medicine during his childhood, when so much was overwhelming him, just being alone was enough to bring him down from the terrifying heights of metal stress he'd been living with for most of his life.

That was the sort of meditation he'd needed, and hadn't been able to find all this time. Not the strange chanting techniques and herbal smoke of Mokka's firepit. This calm lonely walk along the wall was more than just curiosity. He could clearly feel and see everything around him now, no distractions. His visions had been short circuited by everything around him, but up here, it all melted away and he could rest his mind. He was embracing what he was, what he had once been before the island had claimed his soul and sanity. He was one with his nature and now he could direct his Vision of the Unseen towards the wall, and the answer to all his instincts met him when he reached the place where this wall reached the barrier wall with the street beyond.

_Its taller. This wall is taller. It should be level. And it was joined with cement along the connection; its not snug. The Greats were very precise in their measurements and floorplans, if helping Gruffi here and there has taught me anything it's taught me how to use a slide rule. This means that this wall wasn't a part of the original design, but was built later. The Glenhouse and this workhouse were once one and the same property, two parts of a whole. But the workshop was also cut off from the other houses too. Why?_

It was time to climb down. Gruffi, Zummi, and Ursa were waiting for him near the entrance door he hadn't wanted to go through.

"Well there's the big show off now. How the heck did you do that?"

Gusto looked at Ursa for a moment, calmer now than he had ever been in his entire life.

"We lived in the Northern mountains. My family. We all lived up in the mountains, in forests with trees taller than these walls, taller than Dunwyn castle. And we were surrounded by mountains, mountains and more mountains. It was a climb no matter where you went. Do you want to know what I found out?"

Gruffi looked very troubled by this comment, and Gusto could understand why. Everything about his own past bothered him, and Gruffi wasn't used to seeing Gusto so upset. Gruffi had always teased him and queried him about his past, accepting his excuse that he couldn't remember much about his Old Warren. Now there was the inconsistency of him calmly talking about his family, and Gusto couldn't tell him why.

_He's a Gummi Bear. He can't know._

"So the wall was added in later, to divide this workhouse from the Glenhouse, and there's a wall in the front where the drive would be, dividing it from the rest of the houses on the street. This wall clearly was meant to keep anyone from getting in," Ursa said.

"And finding what the Great Gummis were hiding? This wall was built by them..."

Gusto turned and walked to the house, followed by Gruffi and Ursa trailing behind. There was no telling how long they could keep the Gardener under guard, if he could move when pushed too far. So Gusto let the Gardener see he was here, walking in front of the statue calmly and touching the oak door to feel for magic.

"He'd doing that Oracle thing again," Buddi complained nearby. "How long do we have to wait for him to be done?"

Gusto laughed, startling them suddenly and making Ursa swear at him. He wondered how long he'd been like that? His visions only took a moment for him, but now he realized; for other people it seemed as if he was sitting in one place for a long time getting a great deal of information.

_No wonder they all seem impatient,_ he decided. _And no wonder people think that Oracles are so still and peaceful and serene. I wonder if there's a reason for such a difference in time._

"Nothing magic here," Gusto said. "But this door is a normal part of the building, meant to protect what was made in here, the workshop and the secrets of its production. That back metal wall though…" Gusto felt himself moving around the tower, to look at the metal door, even though his body hadn't moved at all. His return was quick, which suggested he could also travel to the site of his visions as much as the visions could travel to him. "Yes, the metal door was built to keep something else secret. It must be the King."

"He is here then…" Zummi said, looking relieved. Arte Deco was now perched on top of his tall hat, sleeping peacefully, which was something Zummi was probably not used to for he was standing very still, trying not to tip his hat over, and thus the bird. "If our house and this was part of the same property, I imagine that this must have been the Royal residence. The Royal Family would have to have had their own workshop, for making the Gummi medallions. A very important secret to be kept indeed."

"And their own carriage house and stables," Ursa had her hands still on her hips, still extremely annoyed. "No other houses in the city have their own carriage house."

"Imagine having your own private food garden, and workshop, and all this lovely green and fertile space," Gusto breathed, spreading his arms wide. "And getting into your carriage each day, and pulled around the city by pretty ponies, and seeing all the Gummis going about their day. Incredible! Its so inspiring!"

No disagreement from the others, who chuckled over Gusto's sudden creative streak. It was the most inspired Gusto had felt in weeks and he wanted desperately now to paint.

_All this mystery, the Visions and the Ghost of the King. I can't do anything until I've solved this. Of course, I have to paint Mandi like I promised. But it will be nice to be able to paint again. At least, to be able to paint anything but what I've been dreaming of!_

Gusto blinked, realizing he was still leaning against the oak door. Buddi snickered and asked him what the fates had told him this time. Gruffi had turned to Ursa and asked her about her axe skills as the two of them discussed the front door and how long it would take to break it down. Gusto suddenly knew exactly what the fates had been telling him.

"No need to break down the door. See that broken window up on the roof?"

It was the only window in the roof actually, at an attic level room. Gusto pointed, and Hawk was now looking up at the window, as if deciding how much rope he would need for a climb.

"Yes, but that window is too small for us to go through!" Ursa said, her frustration reaching its peak.

"For us, maybe but for Arte Deco?"

The bird in question stirred suddenly at the mention of his name, and Zummi was relieved when he flew over to perch on Gusto's own shoulder.

"Were you pretending to sleep?" Gusto said with a smirk.

"I'm not doing anything without a please and thank you Gusto!" Arte complained. "And say something nice about me! Say I'm a pretty birdy!"

Gusto rolled his eyes. Arte was clearly still smarting from Gusto's short tempered insults.

"I have known no other more beautiful bird in the trees," Gusto crooned, practically bowing to his friend as he preened Arte's feathers with his fingers, to the amusement of the Barbics. "Poetry in motion, with a voice like the silvery bells."

"No need to overdo it," Ursa growled. "Go on, Arte, see if you can open the doors from the inside."

"Watch out for danger," Gusto added. "I haven't felt any of those chilly feelings since I spoke to the Gardener. I don't think there's any danger in the house anymore. But you never know…"

They all could only shrug their shoulders and take quick looks at the Gardener, who hadn't changed his posture, probably couldn't with so many around him. None of them had felt anything remiss since arriving, and Gusto was feeling more and more confident that he had simply been the only victim of those off feelings. Besides, if Zummi was right about what he thought was inside the house...

All he could do was wait as Arte Deco flew up to the window with a spiraling motion, making Gusto truly believe, in that moment, that he truly was poetry in motion.

* * *

><p>Arte felt that the cautions and warnings about this building were well placed from the moment he flew inside. This broken window was at the very top of the tower, in the attic level, and the attic he flew into was dusty, creepy and cobwebbed. The thin light of day through the small broken window could not frighten away the shadows of this place, nor prevent Arte from giving a little shrill cry and hiding at seeing a pair of eyes peering at him from under a sheet.<p>

He peeked out from behind the dusty box he had chosen as a hiding place and looked around for the eyes that had frightened him. Then he had to laugh a little at his own nerves.

_It's just a painting! _he said, and fluttered over to pull the sheet fully from the dusty canvas to appreciate for a moment.

It was a Gummi bear, very regal looking elderly woman with a tiara and a rose colored dress, a Gummi Queen perhaps, and she was seated in the traditional manner on her high backed gilded throne. Arte looked around and was amazed to see that this attic room was a storage room for many such old canvases. Many in half-completed state.

_An artist's storage room! This place belonged to an artist!_

Arte discovered the door to the attic was already half open and flew out into the main building and into empty space.

This very square tower was mostly a big open workspace, its many floors were little more than sturdy wooden walkways and scaffolding, ladders and stairways, all in a spiral up the sides of the building to the top, and down to the bottom, with great mechanical chain pulleys in the center ceiling. Arte circled along the wooden walkways, noting the many different stations, tables and benches, tools hanging from every wall. Some of the tools were meant for construction, woodwork, others for metal work. And...a pottery station! Arte landed there, it was sturdier than it looked from above, with a heavy wooden floor and a properly heavy pottery wheel in the center. There were even the remains of unbaked clay sculptures on the table here, drying, that had been drying for ages now, waiting for the fire. Next to the table near a small round window he noted a small but still useful kiln, connected to the small side chimney. It seemed that all the crafters that worked here could have their personal spaces, near the pottery station was an artist's workroom with blank and partially painted canvases, and easels.

Arte flew down to the main floor and kept himself from landing as he surveyed this large roomy workspace with a bit of admiration...and horror.

The gigantic main anvil in the center of the room looked grimly like something out of a legend, a tall metal sword sticking up from its center like the fabled sword in the stone. Unfortunately the sword wasn't impaling the anvil, it was embedded in the hunched back of the the skeletal remains of a Gummi bear, resting across the anvil in deathly face down repose.

_Must be the King they're looking for. He doesn't look very royal right now…_

He wore only the sturdy leather and tweed work clothes of a blacksmith. The room was eerily silent, the work tables were laden with all sorts of objects and Arte noted a great deal of old tarnished gold amongst the offing. The main central large chimney was attached to a combination kiln and forge that was meant for melting, tempering and conditioning the iron and metals at all stages through the smithing process. The other smaller chimney had a large fireplace, a table and chairs and a desk, a small area meant for writing and planning and designing this and that. But this Gummi had been hard at work smithing when he'd been impaled, his hammer and iron forceps still in his leather glove sheathed hands.

Arte quickly located the two doorways to the building. There was a smaller wooden door with nothing more than a small metal latch, which Arte pulled open with some small exertion, only to see the metal barrier of the outer door on the other side.

_No way out that way! That was sealed from the outside!_

The other door was sealed from the inside, with a gigantic wooden beam that Arte knew he would never be able to lift himself.

_I'd better go tell the others! They may be able to work something out!_

Rather than flying all the way back up, he found a square mid-level window with a latch that he opened and flew out to the others.

"Well, report!" Ursa commanded.

"There's a body in there alright, though, he doesn't look like a King..." said Arte, noting Gusto and Zummi's startled movement. "The back door was simply sealed over from the outside, no way to open it from the inside."

"What about the big double doors?"

"There's a huge wooden bar, can't lift it myself. But if you give me a rope I can try tying it around one end…"

"Rope!" Ursa shouted her one word command and the other Barbics rushed off to find an appropriately strong and lengthy rope. "We'll put a hook on one end so you can simply hook it on and we can pull it."

Arte Deco updated Gusto, Zummi, Gruffi and the remaining Barbics as to everything he had seen inside.

"A crafter's paradise, it sounds like," Gruffi looked at Gusto. "Well, you'll have a kiln after all."

But Gusto's face was a mask. His eyes were glassy. He was seeing something now. Arte wanted to stay and find out what but the Barbics returned with armfuls of rolled rope, in case they needed him to add more lines, and Hawk took pity on him by shooting the line himself through the window, with a hook as promised. The Barbics gave the hook and line as much leeway as it wanted and they all sighed in relief when Hawk put both his fingers up, signalling that he had 'felt' on the line that the weight had eased on the other end; the hook had found its way down to a 'floor'.

Inside, the rope gave Arte a bit of trouble as it had merely landed on a scaffolding under the window. He pushed it over the edge, and the Barbics on the other side gave the rope more leeway as the weight on it increased.

_Now the hard part, hooking this thing onto the bar._

A little bird could only lift so much weight, so Arte huffed and puffed and dragged the heavy hook over to the door, and decided that the Barbics would have to think of something else.

"Don't worry," Ursa said. "We can try hooking the beam ourselves. Just come out and tell us if the hook doesn't catch its target."

It was slow going, as the Barbics had to pull the lengths of rope back out the window, around the scaffolding, and Arte did his small bit by swinging the hook back towards the bar as it started to drag along the floor away from it. No good. Arte flew up and told them to stop. He had a better idea.

_It's a good thing I'm so smart_, Arte decided as he untied the rope from the hook with his beak, squeezed through down behind the bar and then tried it back onto the hook. Considering he only had a beak to do this with, it took a very long time. But what other bird could tie a knot? He'd had lots of experience manipulating ropes on the island, helping Gusto build his scaffolding around his Dragon statue. He wondered if Gusto knew just how talented he really was!

As soon as the knot was tied, and Arte was pretty sure it wasn't going to undo, he flew back out and signalled them to try again. This time he had the satisfaction of watching the bar slowly being raised by the hook and its eventually fall to the ground.

Gusto was first through the doorway and Arte landed on his shoulder proudly.

"Arte my dearest oldest friend. I would kiss you if you had lips!"

"Nah, you can kiss Gruffi instead…"

Gruffi had been right behind Gusto and he was blushing red like a bee sting and looking just as put out by the comment as a bee sting would have made him. But Zummi had come in after him, and was now approaching the body in the center of the room with a touch of sadness.

"King Severus? Is this him Gusto?"

Gusto went over to join Zummi and Arte watched the play of emotions over his eyes before he closed them in pain.

"Yes. It's King Severus."

His eyes opened again, and they were glassy as he reached out to touch the body of the King with a sort of apologetic reverence. But then...he suddenly stiffened. And jumped back in sudden realization and horror that was soon shared by the others in the room.

"King Severus was the one in my visions, pounding the hammer on the anvil! It was him, that I was dreaming about. Him, and his golden crown! The golden light! This is what I've been seeing! Because the crown is missing!"

Silence fell upon the area and Arte watched with sorrow as his tired, stressed and miserably unhappy friend fell bonelessly to his knees and wept. A long held burden finally released.

"Please, friends...please leave me alone here. I need to be alone…"

Arte Deco went with Zummi and Gruffi as they shooed the Barbics out of the building to give Gusto a moment of peace. Ursa protested, until Zummi suggested that Gusto was going to try and talk to the King and none of them really wanted to see a ghost. Gritty went about moving the Gardener to a safer place away from the building and the other Gummis discussed everything that had happened. Gruffi was already planning out a proper coffin, lined in soft red velvet for the king, and perhaps Grammi would make some regal robes to bury him in. Zummi admitted that the King's personal belongings were still being kept in the library and he had been cleaning the blood from them to prepare them for the burial with their owner. In regards to the door, however, the Barbics had nothing but congratulations and praises for Arte, rewarding him with preening fingers and wide smiles.

_Well thats better. I feel so much better about coming home. Not so useless as Gusto thought me to be, am I?_

He fluffed his feathers, triumph in his avian grin, and settled down back onto Zummi's hat to get some more sleep.

* * *

><p>All of Gusto's thoughts and feelings were now turned in sorrow down towards the sorrowful form of the King, the bare head a sore spot of confusion in his otherwise miserable mournful peace. All the truths of many months of pain were working around in his chest, the first stirrings of fall blowings its cool breezes through the large doors, to rest around him upon the cold stone floor. Mysteries and unknown messages were long gone from his head, and he closed his eyes.<p>

_It was you, you were the one I've been seeing in my vision. Pounding the anvil with your hammer, golden crown on your head. And now, now that I am as close to the vision as anyone can get, I can see you. I can see._

He could now hear the pounding of the hammer, could feel the heat of the forge, could smell the smoke, the air tasted metallic and productive.

Gusto opened his eyes and was suddenly surrounded by motion and movement. The body was gone, the fall weather was gone and there above him, alive as one could be alive, was Severus the King, hammer raised to fall, the muscles of his body tensing and releasing as the strong arm pounded the metal object on the metal.

Gusto stared. The King was a powerful forceful person, so different from the forlorn ghost he had met. The King, alive as he had been in life was like the God Hephaestus of ancient human myths, forging lightning bolts for Zeus to throw at unsuspecting mortals. The King wore no regal robes, no scepter or crown of his station; he was a blacksmith, and he stopped in his smithing to raise the golden object he was forging to inspect with careful eyes.

A Gummi medallion. But where was the crown? The King was as bare headed as Gusto had seen him in death. The Crown must have been sitting on a pillow somewhere, only worn during royal duties.

Severus didn't seem to mind. He had closed his eyes, and raised his hammer again to go after the medallion. Something wasn't quite right and clearly this bothered him. It was thus that the King was distracted and watching this object with both eyes when his attacker came up quietly behind, impaling him through the back so quickly that Severus could only blink and clutch his smithing tools before falling forward and collapsing on the anvil, unable to even scream. His body twitched for many moments, his mouth open and gasping in realization and then...the light left his eyes, and his breath left him in a sigh.

Gusto would have screamed and fled from the vision in abject terror, yet he could not move. His eyes were transfixed upon the King's murderer, a horror roiling through him that did not end, not when the murderer carefully took the semi completed medallion from where it had fallen to examine it, then swear and throw it on the floor. And the vision did not end there, Gusto watched as the murderer moved in amongst the tables of the workshop, taking completed Gummi medallions from the tables and leaving incomplete gold objects alone. The wooden front doors were already locked with their large wooden bar, but the Killer found some large sheets of iron, and choosing the thickest began work preparing it for sealing the door that he had entered through.

Gusto stumbled backwards out of the vision screaming and found himself being grasped around the shoulders by a frightened Gruffi, Zummi stumbling into the building with a disturbed Arte struggling to keep hold of his hat. Ursa was already there, surveying the room for any sort of invader, but the last invader of this building had probably perished of old age, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

"Zummi!" Gusto said when he could finally speak, blinded by his own tears, chest tight and hot, the smell of smoke still in his mind. "It was a Gummi Bear! King Severus was killed by a Gummi Bear!"

He gasped and clutched at Gruffi's arms, unable to say anything more. He was keening and sobbing, his eyes were red and he could barely choke out anything more than sobs. Gruffi had to drag him weeping from the building into the open fall air, which did little to calm and comfort him. Zummi eventually joined them outside.

"Gusto, Gusto, are you all right?"

"No I'm not alright. I can't. I understand my vision now. The Crown of the King. Its gone isn't it? You didn't find it with the other objects?"

Zumim stirred then nodded sadly.

"It may have gone North with his daughter...the heir to the throne always received the crown from the King upon marriage, and she had been married in secret before she fled."

Gusto had been afraid of this.

"Then I know what I have to do. I have to find the crown and bring it back to Ursalia. I have to go back North!"

And the horror and fear and pain of the world he had left behind filled him again and he broke free of Gruffi's startled arms and ran into the trees, filled with terror.

* * *

><p>Ursa had been the first to find Gusto, perched on top of the wall, silent and contemplating the North as if death itself was staring him in the face.<p>

"Don't be silly," Ursa told him, when Gusto said he would leave immediately. "You will not leave without us, and we will not leave until the King is properly buried and we have dealt with everything here."

"Ursa, its too dangerous…"

"And you think Barbics are afraid of danger? Why, even Grammi wants to train now, in preparation for the journey. If we're going to be going North, we need to finish harvesting the garden. We'll need food for a long journey. And Gruffi wants to make sure all the bushes are planted before we leave so that he doesn't have to worry about that. And we'll have to be back before winter which means making sure we store away enough food to last the winter in case we get here late."

"Which is WHY I should go alone! It'll be faster with just me!"

"God! You have such a self-destructive personality!" Ursa said. "Do you really think this is your quest alone? We all have to atone for the death of our King. The crown didn't just head North for you to find it yourself. It belongs to the whole Gummi race."

Ursa saw the play of emotions on Gusto's face as he finally resigned himself to the truth. Ursa would have to set Hawk to watching him, in case he tried to go off on his own.

"I just...I keep seeing him being killed, over and over. You know how helpless it is to watch someone die and not be able to do anything about it?"

"Yes," Ursa said immediately, thinking of her strong noble father, and her brave but foolish brother, and the killing fires that had consumed them both. "I have."

Gusto looked at her, and she momentarily had the feeling that her raw emotions were showing on her eyes.

"I'm not stupid," she said fiercely. "I know how dangerous orcs can be. I know how dangerous Barbarians are. They destroyed Barbic woods remember. I am not one to play with fire just because I think I can avoid the burn. I have been burned too many times before. But I will not let any one of my Barbics be killed because he was too proud to accept help from us!"

"One of your...Barbics?"

Ursa smiled and patted him on the hand.

"You don't have to take the Barbic Rite of Bearhood to be a Barbic. Consider this journey our test of your skills. Though," she looked down over the edge of the wall and the dizzyingly far down earth scoffed her next comments. "You have already proven your ability to hunt and climb with the best of us. And track. And all that. By the by," she turned to look at Gusto, who had looked over the wall to see what she had been looking at. "Zummi found a Gummi Medallion in one of the storage rooms in the workshop. So be prepared for him to ask you to be his apprentice."

Gusto moaned audibly, and Ursa laughed, poking him gently in the shoulder so as not to send him tumbling.

"Now then, lets get the hell down off this wall. I can climb this wall no problem, but the way you climb you'd think you were born in a tree."

"Mountains," Gusto corrected, and Ursa kept her pace slow so she could watch to make sure he made the ground in his current unpredictable state of mind. "I was born in the mountains."

Ursa thought about that for a moment, as her feet touched the ground.

"Sammi was born in the Northern mountains too. Could you be a relative?"

"How could he be?" Gusto said, scratching the back of his head, his eyes taking on a young and pained expression that Ursa had never seen on such a grown bear. "My relatives are all dead."

* * *

><p>Seven days from the date they found the body, the burial commenced. King Severus was a sad but regal figure in his simple blue velvet lined oak coffin, wrapped in a red velvet robe that Grammi had sewn from curtains she had salvaged from the palace. The velvet lining of the coffin had been made from one of Sunni's own dresses she did not enjoy wearing. It was too heavy for her, but had been remade from one that Cala had given her. It was looking nice as a coffin lining. Gruffi despaired that the coffin wasn't more decorative, but since they were burying the coffin anyways, it was fine.<p>

Gusto had chosen the spot, on purpose. In the garden, under the giant tree where Sammi had been living. They had already cleared the tree of all Sammi's collected belongings before, but now the tree, turning yellow and red in the cool fall air, was trimmed with hundreds of beautiful paper lanterns that Zummi had lighted with a magic light that didn't burn and glowed gently over the assembled as the sun set. A sundown funeral was traditional, signalling the end of the life with the end of the day's light. A birth, however, was celebrated throughout the day it took place.

But a new quest always began at the crack of dawn. Memories of the funeral the night before pulled Gusto out of his dreaming sleep to find himself curled up in an empty bed. Gruffi was already doing his jumping jacks, his everyday ritual before the day started. Gusto knew that Gruffi didn't need to stay fit this way, his work kept him active, but it was endearing and reassuring nonetheless. He would never fear his lover would get overweight or over eat. He may try to do MORE than his health could handle, but he wouldn't be sedentary.

Gusto stretched out with a sigh. Their room was now crowded with his unfinished art, though one piece he'd finally started was finished last night. Mandi Gummi would not stay in this room, however, they were going to store all their family paintings, all the canvases he had been patiently working on, and all the canvases from the palace, in the workshop attic with the rest of the art Arte had found there. It was safer there, and nobody would be able to get in to steal it.

As for the workshop itself, there was no need for them not to make use of it once they returned, it was a perfectly good workshop despite the new grave out behind. Gruffi had removed the iron door at last, removed the wooden inner door and installed a brand new door, with a proper lock and keyhole, and the key was being kept on a chain with Gruffi's other keys, including the keys to this house and the palace. He'd put locks and keys on everything over the years, his obsession with protecting the Great Gummi's secrets from outsiders becoming almost a madness.

_I'm nobody to talk about madness. The Barbics are already calling me the Mad Gummi of the Mountains. Gusto the Mad!_

He regretted telling Ursa about his dead family. Mostly because he'd been talking about his family as if they were still alive.

Again the inconsistency. He frowned at himself for his weakness. He should just tell them everything. But he couldn't.

_Gummi Bears can't understand. Maybe Ursa or Grammi would, but not the rest._

"Hey lazy, are you getting out of bed?"

Gusto chuckled and finally crawled out under the covers, going through his normal motions as Gruffi watched on. He was feeling embarrassed that they were all watching him for signs of madness.

_I already know I'm mad. Mad at that murderous Gummi for killing our King!_

Zummi had gone through all his books and research trying to find any clue as to the murderer's identity. All Gusto could provide was a description of his face. At least they now knew why the Gardener was the way he was. He had failed to protect the King, or at least thats what Zummi surmised. The Gardener had not revealed anymore to Gusto, but they had been surprised to discover the Gardener was now working silently at night to keep the gardens weeded and pruned. Nobody saw him do this, of course, but the results were obvious and they had once even found the gardener in the middle of one garden bed, a look of serenity on his face, leaning on his hoe casually as he had not done since that first day. Gusto decided that a huge weight of guilt would have been lifted off his shoulders with their discovery of the King.

_Zummi has decided to try one more time to turn the Gardener back into a Gummi Bear. I don't know. There's something else to this, I don't think its just a matter of failing to guard the King."_

Breakfast was a brief affair, as the Barbics were already waiting with rammas for them at the city gates. Two rammas were both hitched to two wagons that the Glens could travel in. Gruffi was of the mind that the quick cars up that far weren't very well cared for and it was safer to travel overland until they reached the closest warren. They'd pass through the remains of Barbic woods, head East for awhile and stop at Gritty's old empty childhood warren and try to slip passed the Barbarians before heading North again. The Barbics had been comparing all their maps of all the information they'd gotten, had sent Arte to confirm information with Cala back in Dunwyn, and had planned their route out as carefully as possible. Gusto would have to lead them the rest of the way to his warren, which wasn't labelled on their maps.

The orcs were camped well into the North and had yet to make a move South. Gusto was praying that they could slip North passed their army into the mountains without being noticed. Once in the mountains they'd be stuck there and vulnerable.

Ursa gave them all a pep talk as Zummi loaded the first wagon with his books, research, everything they might need that would help them find the crown. It could be located at any of the warrens they would be visiting. Gruffi got into the seat of the second wagon, Zummi let Tummi take the reigns of his own wagon, and Gusto decidedly climbed up next to his lover in the seat, declining the offer Ursa had given him to travel by ramma. That was one thing he was NOT good at; riding rammas.

Sunni and Grammi had filled the second wagon with their food and daily living supplies and they both climbed into the back of it in order to keep doing their knitting and sewing as they went. Pots and pans and one big washtub hung from the sides of the wagon and rattled as they rolled, which caused the Barbic trackers to complain about how loud they were obviously being. Gruffi had finally halted them all with a curse word and helped the trackers secure the noisy elements to their satisfaction before starting up again.

"As if the wagons and rammas themselves aren't making noise as they move!"

The rammas were carrying everything else, including the Barbics perched on top of them.

But these were all the animals they would be taking. They had let the goats loose in the enclosed yard of one of the other houses in the hidden street, so that they would survive alone. The watering system would provide them with water and keep the lawns growing so they wouldn't starve. The house was emptied of everything goats didn't need so that they could have shelter.

The chickens, however, had been added to the food supplies. Gusto knew they would soon be very very tired of eating dried chicken jerky.

_Better than hare. I think we're all tired of hare._

Gusto felt the jolt of the moving wagon, wondering vaguely why everyone would be so willing to risk their lives for a crown.

_No, its for you. They know this is something you have to do, a task that destiny has appointed to you, and they don't want you to go it alone._

Gusto felt extremely guilty about this. Gruffi's cheerful whistling as he clicked the reigns, ignoring the stubborn behavior of the rammas he directed, was enough to cheer him up. He took a hold of Gruffi's arm and leaned against his strong shoulder, allowing himself a moment of weakness as he made use of the other bear's strength.

Gruffi turned to look at him and Gusto responded with a positive smile.

_I may be the Mad Gummi of the Mountains, but we're all stark raving bonkers to be going on this quest. You'd have to be mad to risk your life over a trinket!_


End file.
